Doves in the Wind

[Maraoone]

It was decided then. There was a pang of jealousy at not being the one fly in the air, but Matias' back ached at the mere thought of carrying that thing on his back for more than a few minutes, so, like, you know what, Ashanti could have this. He was gracious like that.

Also, like, there was that little note in the binder about how the intern that tested it broke both their legs, but like. Eh. He'd let her know about it when he did. He was 90% sure he wouldn't forget about it.

Anyways, they went about putting it on her back. The process had been cumbersome and awkward and honestly somewhat annoying because, like, they'd lifted it up the wrong way, top bit on her end, bottom bit on his, when it was supposed to be the other way around, so they had to put it down and lift it up a-fucking-gain. And then, there was a small bit where he had to hold the entire thing by himself so that they could actually put the goddamn thing on her back, and his arms had felt like they were about to snap off for those few seconds, but he wasn't a fucking twig, so they'd managed.

She'd also felt somewhat cold while they'd been working about it, but come the fuck on. He was the one here doing her a fucking favor. Without him, the jetpack would just be a useless hunk of metal, and Ashanti would be all by herself, weaponless, with no one to talk to- I'm sorry, sign to, and she'd essentially be up for the pickings by whichever psycho decided to start shooting as soon as they woke up. She could deal with a little attitude from him, and he could deal with his arms almost falling off, he thought it was a more than fair trade.

Once that had been taken care of, Matias took hold of her bag and didn't run away with it because asking a girl to carry a probably 20-pound bag on top of the 80-pound jetpack was a lot, so he'd carry this extra load for her because he was a fuckin' gentleman. That and because she was his teammate and screwing over his teammate for the hell of it wasn't really the play here. Mostly that actually.

A few more seconds of silence, standing around followed. The question of the moment was what now, and, well, Matias had a few good ideas for that. He hadn't gotten to actually give out his speech, just allude to it with his binder, and he still thought it was a pretty good speech, so he was itching to give it out. But, there was a more pressing question.

That pang of jealousy at not getting to be a much cooler version of Jimmy Neutron still lingered, but it was starting to fade. Like... what would you even do with it? He was pretty sure you couldn't fly out the arena without your collar exploding, and, even if you managed it, there was nothing ensuring you'd make a safe landing. It'd take a while to master the controls, and the description said there was only half a minute worth of fuel in the thing. He figured anyone who actually used it would get a few dozen feet in the air, run out of fuel, and then, either splat themselves on a boat deck, or sink like a stone if they fell in the sea.

But what did he know, right? Maybe Ashanti had something in mind. Science had never been his strong suit in school to be honest.

"WHAT - PLAN?" he asked while pointing at her jetpack.

[Brackie]

Ashanti's leg were shaking, not because the jetpack was hard to lift up, but because her entire sense of balance had been shucked into the abyss.

Matias had no idea what it was like carrying Susan and Mary around all day - to be quite frank, if she'd gotten rid of them one day, she'd be left with nothing but a steel spine that could withstand a sledgehammer - so Ashanti just had to demonstrate. She took one careful step forward, shaking slightly, and then another. She shook slightly at every foot, knowing that the wrong step or the wrong balance put forth could just as easily snap her in half if she rooted herself too well.

Eventually, she'd taken enough steps that she was out of her little hidey-hole, standing in one of the many impromptu corridors sneaking throughout.

She turned around, fully expecting the weight of the jetpack on her back to swing her further than she needed, but grabbing the corner of an old box nearby to stabilize herself. She felt the metal tap the wood as it hit, but Ashanti held firm.

When she no longer needed help, she removed her hand, and returned to talking.

"We take this up. Find a safe place. Find someone smart enough to use it."

Ashanti was smart in the ways of the world. The ways of science could be left to someone else, just as long as Ashanti could benefit off of it.

[Maraoone]

So the plan was to have someone else come up with a plan. Cool.

'That sounds fucking stupid' were the first words that came to mind for Matias, but it was a lot harder to let words slip from your fingers than your mouth, so you know what, there was one good thing at least about this whole communication thing Ashanti had going on.

Instead, Matias nodded just to convey that, yes, he'd heard the plan, it sure was a fuckin' plan.

And then he said "MY - TURN."

He pulled out the binder again, positioned himself next to Ashanti, and flipped through the first couple of pages in the binder, pausing on each new profile, underlining each name with his pointer finger.

The fuckface in the Hawaiian shirt, the one who'd given his little introductory speech for this season while they'd all been tied up, he'd mentioned briefly that the teams would be a bit larger. That was an understatement. Previous seasons had had five people per team. There were eleven whole entire people on his team, on their team, on... Ben's Crabs.

He could hear his bandmates snickering in the distance, saying shit like 'Hurr durr looks like someone's got a bad case of the crabs' whenever one of them would get a kill.

Why couldn't he have been placed on Shiva's Sirens or Jewel's Leviathans instead? Now, those names were fuckin' badass.

He'd taken stock of the names the first time he'd browsed through it, after looking through his own profile. And now he browsed through them again, making sure Ashanti memorized the names as well as he had.

Mateo existed.

Eric was a dick, monarch for a kingdom of one.

Yours truly was here, easily the best of the team.

Anthony was cool. He liked Anthony.

Gabby was a bitch.

Rebecca existed, allegedly.

Ashanti was here, obviously.

Marion existed. Actually knew a bit of ASL too. Was decent enough, he guessed.

Gregory existed.

Fuck Junji. Fuck Junji. Matias had been hoping to slash through his profile with untrimmed nails, making a show of crossing an X through the paper, but the pages were laminated. Kinda humiliating to be honest. Junji wouldn't be on the team. Fucking disgusting piece of shit, fuck Junji.

And Lark existed.

He didn't know most of these people. He didn't like most of these people. Most of the people he liked or cared about weren't here. His bandmates didn't go to the same school as him, his siblings were too young to be selected—he forced down a lump in his throat, his vision blurred for a second—and most of the friends he did have in school weren't even on the same team as him.

Cristobal, Leo, Leslie were on different teams.

Kurt, fucking Kurt, he was on the page right after the last profile. One page off from being on the same team as him. Not that he was a particularly close friend, he was cool, he was alright, but it would've been nice to have one more friendly face to be with.

He couldn't help but think he'd been screwed over by chance.

Fuck it stung.

But, it was what it was, right? And, he'd told himself, he'd just told himself that he'd lost a friend already. He'd lost Jake already, and, it wasn't the same, it wasn't nearly close, Jake would still be alive after all this and all of the others wouldn't, but at least he had an idea, right?

He'd think about it more when he had to. Not now.

After they took in Lark's name, he turned to Ashanti, tapped her shoulder.

"WE - ELEVEN—"

He caught himself. Crossed an X through Junji's profile one more time.

"WE - TEN - TOGETHER - WIN."

Once more, for emphasis.

"IF - WE - TEN - PLAY - TOGETHER - THEN - WE - WIN."

It was simple math, math that even he understood. If you get a group of ten together, then obviously they could curbstomp any poor fuck caught by themselves. He didn't know most of these people, he didn't like most of these people, but that didn't matter anymore.

And, most of them probably wouldn't even see or hear it coming. Most of the audience probably didn't understand that that was what he had said the first time he talked to Ashanti, that that was what she had agreed to so readily. But he did, Ashanti did, and that was more than good enough.

They'd be unstoppable.

He just hoped Ashanti got that.

"UNDERSTAND?"

[Brackie]

It was incredibly rude of Matias to brush off Ashanti's plan like that.

This was a jetpack. It had flammability in it. It had the ability to do damage, to let things get crazy. Things could get real interesting if someone knew what to do with the components.

But Matias was more interested in towing the line.

And, as evident by the fact that she had still yet to let her voice escape while she was here, Ashanti wasn't about that.

Living was a priority, of course - she didn't want to die, any less than she wanted men in voices to own her image - but if they could do something else to the people, running this thing, make things less SOTF and more a blip in the radar, something she could sneak under and escape, then that was also a priority. A lesser one, but still one.

As she looked at the fellow students on her team, she was thinking about how them working together would just play into what they wanted, and Ashanti wasn't sure if she wanted that. Why were there such big teams? Did the people who ran this thing really want a team victory? More winners to add to that illustrious group? There were questions that needed to be answered, and just as much as she made that decision with her voice she needed to question what the goal was here.

But just as much as she did that she knew that a lot of people could live if the cards were played correctly.

Ashanti really didn't know which one was more important, though.

She looked at Matias as he finished his spiel.

She looked back at the binder.

She looked back at Matias once again.

She looked down at her slightly shaky legs.

And once again she looked back at Matias.

"Yes."

Once again, forgoing what she wanted to keep herself safe.

[Maraoone]

"OKAY."

And there was nothing more to be said. Matias would help Ashanti do whatever with the jetpack, Ashanti would help Matias find the rest of this team so they could curbstomp their way off the island, they were on the same page. That was that.

He nodded at her.

"WE - GO - NOW."

And so they went. Matias ahead of Ashanti. One bag on his back, the other hanging off his shoulder.

They trekked their way through the maze of crates, pausing every time some noise or another seemed to rise above the moaning and creaking and yawning of wherever the hell they were. And, he'd look back, and Ashanti would be creaking and wobbling and swaying along with the room they were in, but she'd go on just fine, even with the 80-pound thing on her back.

And, he'd look back again. And again. And again. Just to make sure she was keeping up. He couldn't win with his team if he didn't have his team with him in the first place, after all.

He considered helping her, at some point. Maybe switching the jetpack and one of the bags, or something like that. But she never asked for it, so he never offered.

She was holding her own.

A hint of a smile crept on his face. He turned back around.

His nose itched, at some point. He brushed his hand against his nose just to get rid of the sensation, and waves of pain coursed through his face instead, a curse slipped from his mouth. Right. The fucking suits had broken it.

He'd have to fix this, wouldn't he?

Fuck.

He scratched below it, came away with red-black flakes. Fuckin' gross. Scratched the rest off.

He'd take care of it when he would. He'd gotten his nose broken before, you had to approach things like this carefully. He'd just have to put up with breathing through his mouth and the occasional nosebleed for a bit longer. Fucking sucked having an injury on day one already, but he'd deal.

Ashanti was dealing with it too, after all.

She could hold her own.

And he could hold his.

And that was how he liked it.

((Matias Juarez continues in Chapter 46: Fantom Frigate))

[Brackie]

Ashanti was going to get back at Matias for not helping her with the jetpack, but that was for another time.

((Ashanti Baker continued in Chapter 46: Fantom Frigate))