by Azalea Ellis
I stood up, and saw Jacky throw a crispy soldier off of her, and get up, too. She rubbed at her eyes and groaned, obviously having failed to close them in time.
Adam sagged against the wires, and took his hand off of them.
I took a few steps, making sure I had my balance, and then saw soldiers within the hallways crawling to their feet. He hadn’t barbecued them.
--CLOSE THE DOORS, ADAM.--
-Eve-
I could barely make out my own voice giving the command, so I knew he wouldn’t be able to hear anything, seeing as he was literally in the center of that lighting boom.
He shook his head and straightened, and started to tap away at a screen embedded to his side among the wires.
Two seconds later, and the doors slid shut, ignoring the panicked soldier’s attempts to keep them open.
“How long?” I sent him in a Window.
--IT WON’T BE OPENING FROM THE INSIDE. THEY’LL HAVE TO BLAST THEIR WAY THROUGH. SO MAYBE FIVE MINUTES?--
-Adam-
I crawled up the side of the sphere’s concrete support to the grated maintenance ledge that lay around the top.
The sphere stood in front of me, pulsing with a faint hum of energy. Lines covered its surface, a bit like the patterning of the Seeds. All around it floated orbiting rings moving at different angles, like a way more complex version of the belts around the planet Saturn, but of different sizes, orientations, and made of strange metals unlike any I'd ever seen.
"So this is it," I said aloud. The thing that NIX used to send us to the Trials, and to track us when we went, even without the GPS trackers in our necks. I pressed the tip of my claws to its surface and walked a few steps, making tiny scratches in the metal. The sound of it rang out like a long and continuous crystal bell.
I looked out, and saw people pressed up against the glass wall some of the inside hallways, staring out at the scene we'd been making. I smiled at them, and waved a bloody, claw-tipped hand.
The alarms stopped, as Adam crackled away with electricity down below, and only in their absence did I realize that they'd been sounding the whole time.
In the silence, I took a deep breath and screamed at the top of my lungs. "Send out your leader!"
Jacky jumped up beside me, shaking the grating.
"Glad you could make it," I said, grinning.
She pursed her lips, fighting against a smile of her own. "I was busy. Didn’t you notice?"
"I noticed you taking forever with those guards. And then getting buried under Adam's lightning barbecue."
She was grinning full out now. "Me taking forever? I remember finishing my area, and then coming down to help someone, no?" She gave me a pointed look. "And I may not have a flashy power like you two, but I make up for it in other ways." She flexed her bicep and wiggled her eyebrows.
I laughed. "Hmm...how about a demonstration?" I patted one of the gently moving rings that orbited the sphere.
"My pleasure." As we'd planned beforehand, she began to pound on the sphere and its rings, varying kicks and punches.
It shuddered on its stand, and some of the rings jammed up on each other when she forced them out of proper orbit.
I added blows of my own, though they had nowhere near the impact of Jacky's. My claws were useless here, too soft to cut through the metals.
"Have you got the name yet?" I asked Adam.
"Almost...okay. I think it's Nadia Petralka," he called up to me.
"You think?"
"It is."
I called out again, "Nadia Petralka! Come to me!"
From beside me, Jacky paused in her attacks, and said, "Isn't she trapped inside along with all the others? What if she's trying, but she can't get out here?"
I shrugged. "She'll come out once they finish blasting down the doors. I'm sure they've already started. And in the meantime, we can put on a little more of the show. I still haven't gotten to bring out my party trick, remember?"
Jacky opened her mouth, "Ah...are you going to do that, now?" She stepped backward.
"Yes."
She nodded, and stepped back again, getting as far away from me as possible while not going so far around the circle that she got in front of me. "Should I get down?"
"You should be fine. I can control it." I raised my hands toward the sphere, as if I was getting ready to push it.
She looked from my face, to my hands, and then down to the ground.
I sighed. "Fine. Go down if you must."
She nodded, let out a sigh of relief, and jumped off the edge to safety.
I looked around again, and saw some people pounding on the glass, impotent and silent behind its barrier. I turned back to the sphere and took a deep breath, closing my eyes. In that room of serenity in my mind, I opened the chest of stillness. The box of silence was leaking black mist at the edges, which alarmed me.
As if sensing my disturbance, the misty tendrils wriggled and thickened.
I grabbed that small bit of Chaos and threw it outward, into the real world, right at the sphere. Even as the metal screamed and buckled, the sphere rocking on its stand and letting out heat as its molecules rubbed against each other, in my mind I was slamming shut the chest and locking the door, lest the rest of my power escape.
I looked at the partly damaged sphere with satisfaction, and then screamed again, "Nadia!" My voice was strong, despite my spinning head and legs that were threatening to buckle. A mixture of Chaos-enhanced rage and fear kept adrenaline in my veins, and me on my feet. Using the power took a lot out of me. I heard glass breaking behind me, and turned back to see a group of people jumping out of the window into the courtyard, kind of like my team had done the last time we were here.
It was a group of younger people, dressed in a uniform quite different than the soldiers.
I smiled wide. "Players." The last time we'd done reconnaissance on the place, we'd thought maybe they were captives, or possibly test subjects. It'd been beyond us to consider someone who'd been forced into the Game, willing to cohabitate with their oppressors. But I knew them for what they were, now. "Why, hello," I called down to them. "I don't suppose one of them is Nadia?" I directed the question toward Adam, who was standing shoulder to shoulder with Jacky, facing off against the advancing group.
"No," he said, clipped.
"Then I'm going to warn you," I called down to them. "We're not here for you. Go back, and we'll allow you to live."
They didn't stop, and the hair on the back of my neck rose as rage at being ignored and a healthy dose of wariness both washed through me.
The Player at the forefront, a shorter girl with spiked pixy cut hair and a hooked nose, laughed aloud. "You were looking for the Commander? Sorry, scag. I can't make the same promise to you. None of you will be leaving here alive." She pointed two fingers from each hand at Adam and Jacky. "Two on one. Take them down. I'll handle the giant." She jerked her chin up to me.
I raised an eyebrow. "Now, that's a bit hurtful, don't you think? I'm just a little taller than the average—” I cut off as she shot off the ground like a rocket, slamming into me and knocking me off the platform.
Chapter 38
It was like this blackness that crept into the corners of my life until everything was grey and dirty. My insides felt burnt out, like if you cut me open, all you would find would be smoke. No heart. No bones. There was nothing left, just the anger. It followed me everywhere. It sat on my bed and watched me sleep and when I had to eat, it looked at me across the table.
― Tanya Byrne
The pixie Player slammed me into the far wall hard enough that my body armor rippled with the attempt to protect me. Something cracked. I wasn't sure if it was me or the concrete wall, and I didn’t know which was more likely.
She stepped back, and I slid to the ground, coughing out little puffs as I tried to regain my air.
I caught a glimpse of Jacky and Adam, fighting wildly with their backs to each other.
Before I could move, the pixie gir
l stepped forward again, and slammed her foot into my stomach, further winding me. She ground her flat-heeled boot into me, and brought down a fist for a quick punch in the temple.
When she pulled her fist back again, I grabbed her foot and bucked upward, slamming my bare feet into her chest, while simultaneously pushing and twisting at her foot.
Her much smaller body flew backward, but she followed the force of my throw, twisted, and landed on her feet, sliding backward.
That was okay, because it gave me enough time to stand up again. I tackled her before she stopped sliding, claws out. I expected them to sink into the soft flesh of her sides, but instead they slid harmlessly forward, and I ended up in a kind of awkward body roll with her.
I used the momentum to tear myself free, and jump back. I stayed in a limber crouch a safe distance from her, claws out and ready to slice, though I now had doubts about their ability to actually do so. Was she wearing some sort of body armor beneath that uniform?
Then her skin turned gray and scaly, rippling out across her neck, hands, and face from underneath her clothes. Literal armored skin.
"Sorry, scag," she sneered. "Your little claws won't work here."
I grinned, and lunged forward, my right hand aimed low. At the last second, I shot two fingers from my other hand at her eyeballs.
Her face twisted in alarm as my "little claws" came within millimeters of her unprotected eyes. But she threw her head backward, dipping her upper body recklessly toward the ground.
My claws missed her eyeballs and scraped across her gray-scaled forehead harmlessly.
She turned her dip into a backflip, and grinned at me again.
To our side, Adam shot off bolts of lightning toward his and Jacky's four opponents. The arcing electricity caught two of them, and Jacky and he were on them instantly, he with his knives, and she with her fists.
It was my turn to grin. "Looks like this isn't going too well for your friends, huh?"
"Don't worry. When I'm finished with you, I'll go help them out."
"For that to happen, you'd have to still be alive at the end of this."
"Like you're going to stop me? Honey, it's obvious you don't have what it takes."
I smiled at her, straightening from my crouch. "There's a whole other side to me that you haven't seen yet, Honey.” I stepped forward, taking a deep breath with every footfall.
Her mouth tightened, and I saw the moment when she grew wary and decided on a preemptive strike. She shot forward a millisecond later, but I was already jumping to the side.
Her eyes widened as she realized her miscalculation, but by then she was in motion, and it was too late.
I grabbed her by the arm and spun her around, throwing her into the side of one of the buildings in the courtyard.
As her face whitened in pain—I guess that armored skin didn't protect her internal organs—I walked toward her again, breathing deep and concentrating.
She made it to her feet and climbed up the side of the building, hoping to buy time or gain an advantage with the height, perhaps.
I jumped and grabbed the edge easily, and from there it only took half a second and a grip on the concrete with my toes to make it onto the roof.
But of course, me coming up after her is what she'd planned for. She was already shooting forward as soon as I'd planted my feet.
There was nowhere to go but back down off the roof, and I threw myself backward to avoid her attack, lifting my arms in a defensive stance. I was too slow.
She stopped abruptly an arm’s length in front of me, and slammed both of her palms forward, carrying all the energy of the full body dash she'd just aborted. Her hands smashed past my half-formed defense like it wasn't even there, and crashed into my chest.
I watched as if in slow motion as my vest sank into a perfect impression of her small hands, then rippled outward like the surface of still water after a pebble is dropped into it. My body flew up and backward, bowed forward around the point where she'd hit me. My lower back slammed into the side of the grated walkway around the stalled metal sphere. I flipped backward, tilting around the axis where I'd hit, and slid along the grating. I clawed desperately at the platform, twisting and sliding to a stop. Damn.
I tasted blood in my mouth, and gaped soundlessly in shock as the pain hit me. But I grabbed onto the sphere and pulled myself up.
She was still standing on the roof down below, panting hard. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw me rise.
This wasn't the first time I'd taken a beating or been thrown around like a rag doll. I wouldn't be taken out so easily. I fought the black spots behind my eyes and the desire to pass out, and tried to force my lungs to expand and take in air again. They ignored me for the moment, but I was sure they'd listen eventually. If they didn't, I'd pass out, and if that happened it would all be over, and this would be for nothing.
So I sucked harder.
She jumped forward in that inhuman way that I'd only ever seen Jacky do, and landed in a crouch on the platform a couple yards from me. She stood, and smiled when she saw my condition, blood dripping from my mouth, a hand pressed to my chest, and barely able to stand.
Desperation raged in my chest, and I screamed at myself wordlessly. I could not be defeated here. After all that I'd been through, and how close I was to accomplishing my goal, I couldn't lose here, just because I was weak. I'd always been weak, and my enemies had always been strong, but that hadn't stopped me before. I was supposed to be stronger now.
She stepped forward and threw a punch toward my stomach.
I watched it coming, still screaming inside for my body to move, to attack, to win.
Then, everything snapped. The world slowed down as my whole being overloaded. Every thought slipped temporarily out of my mind except for the sight of her bringing forward a fist to smash into my body, and my raging denial of my possible loss to her.
I stepped forward to meet her fist, grabbing it with my clawed palm, just so.
She was moving as if through water, her expression just beginning to change from cocky into something else as she saw into the depths of my eyes.
With one shallow breath and a sleepy blink, I unleashed Chaos.
I had very little control over my new power this time, and it roared out of me with the force of a hurricane. I slammed her into the sphere, staring into her eyes, my hand still clenched around her fist.
Visible ripples radiated through the air, her gray skin, her bones, her blood, her organs, and out into the sphere, which screeched again as the metal moved and buckled under my power like undulating water under the force of a storm.
She screamed the scream of being separated from herself, as her insides bucked and bubbled and burst. It was a horrible sound, reverberating through my bones and echoing from every surface in the courtyard.
Then her bleeding eyes rolled back in her head, and she went limp.
The overpowering storm of rage in my head hadn't calmed yet, and I wanted to continue hurting her until she died, if she hadn't already. I wanted to keep smashing her like the bug she was, until her body was nothing but an unrecognizable lump of flesh and blood and bone.
But I took my second breath, a gasp this time, and released her fist and my power.
Chapter 39
Hello, darkness, my old friend…I’ve come to talk to you again.
— Simon and Garfunkel
The fighting down below had stopped, as everyone still standing looked up at me with wide eyes.
In the sudden silence, my knees almost buckled from the backlash of my attack. My head spun as the rage and triumph tried to take over again, and I was as tired and hurt as if I'd just fallen out of a plane with no parachute. If no one had been watching, I would have fallen to the ground and let my consciousness slip away. Using Chaos twice in such short succession should still have been impossible for me.
But this was neither the time nor place for weakness, so I straightened and put on a mask of calm confidence. "You will con
cede defeat," I called down to the still conscious attackers below, "or I will come down there and destroy you all."
They raised their hands, and the three that could still move backed away from Jacky and Adam. The other was unconscious, and didn't look like he'd be waking up any time soon.
A muffled boom sounded from down below, and then one of the concrete doors burst open, rubble flying as an explosion ripped it apart.
A uniformed woman stumbled out, ignoring the surprised call of, "Commander! Wait!" from behind her. Metal stripes glinted on her shoulder.
"Is it her?" I called down to Adam.
"Yes," he said.
"I am Commander Nadia Petralka," she shouted. "Please, stop now. I've come, like you requested."
"Do you know who I am?" I asked, again running my claws over the surface of the damaged sphere.
She nodded, but her eyes were drawn to the downed girl at my feet. "You're Eve Redding, one of our highest ranked Players. Stop what you're doing. There is no need for further destruction or violence."
I frowned. "You say that, but you people are the ones who started all this. And suddenly, when it turns out you may have taken on the wrong opponent, you call for peace? I warned her to leave us alone if she wanted to live."
"Is she...dead?" Nadia Petralka's voice threatened to waver, and she clenched her jaw instead, keeping a calm face.
I reached down for the pixie girl's throat, and Nadia took half a step forward, hand lifting, before she seemed to remember herself and abruptly stopped.
I smiled down at her, and found an erratic pulse in the girl's neck. "She's alive. I'm not sure for how long, without medical attention."
"She's just a girl. She doesn't have anything to do with this. Let her go, and we can talk."
I laughed. "Why would I let her go when you so badly want her to be safe? She serves double duty for me, as a bargaining chip and a ticking clock. It couldn’t be more perfect if I planned it myself.” Wow. I sounded like a comic book villain.
Her mouth tightened, and she snapped her ID sheath link straight, turning it into a flat screen. “You want something, and I want something, Eve. Maybe those two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.” She held up the screen toward me.
