but one life to lose

[Cicadan]

((Bridie Mossberg continued from Semper Fidelis))

The weight of the kama was by now comfortably familiar, it’s wooden handle rubbed a raw redness into the thin flesh between thumb and finger.

She hadn’t slept all night. She’d been hunting down Damien, or anyone in general, because she was frustrated. That was because she was losing time. It unsettled her.

Whenever she’d per chance stand still, and not be driven by those odd and relatively careful calculations she supposed was bloodlust, she felt… hollow. Listless. She’d close her eyes and dead faces would appear. And she hated those faces. They looked unnatural, swimming in the void behind her eyelids. They weren’t real. And that didn’t even matter. She got an icy wind up her spine whenever they appeared. To be sure, she hated them. She’d say it as many times as she needed to, whining to herself under the hot desert sun as it melted away into a cool evening and a moon whose phase she couldn’t tell.

She’d learned it once, she swore. She’d forgotten. But the moon looked big in the sky, round and full.

She kept moving as much as she could, because she couldn’t stand the feelings of not being driven. She was an American anyways. She couldn’t afford thoughts that she didn’t need, that wasn’t the right sort of head to have on the battlefield. She hadn’t done well so far. Still, she continually assured herself she could do better. She was stronger than her weak fears, her weak knees that ached now with every step of her forced march. Left.. left…. left, right, left..

A figure in the distance. Immediately, thankfully, her instinct kicked in. She had been forged at least that much by the island. As she should have been.

Like the blade in her hand that she raised and pointed at that still unknown, unfamiliar face. Whetted, sharpened for battle.

“I’m not here to play games! You’d better not be a coward!”

[Aura]

(Scott Whitman continued from Unjustifiable)

Frustration. Fury. Indignance. Rage. Those were only a few words that Scott had on hand to describe himself at that time. Despite his search and the skills that he had picked up in preparation for the military, he had yet to find hide nor hair of Mina Mashall since their encounter on the first day.

There was no limit to how livid this made him. There was an enemy of his country running around, free to her own devices and doing whatever blasphemous actions she was inclined towards doing, and that infuriated him. He could not be calm when such things were happening with his knowledge. And since no one had seen fit to eliminate her according to the announcements, it seemed that that job would fall to him.

Not that he minded. He was still sore about the way she had eluded him earlier. Finishing her off would be the perfect way for him to tie up that loose end. He had been thinking about it for some time now, and he was looking forward to finally dealing with her for the last time.

But now he was distracted. There was a voice shouting at him, calling him a coward. He was no coward. He was a patriot. Whoever saw fit to insult him that way would be punished, just as he punished the girl from the pool. Scott Whitman would not be put down.

He turned and caught sight of the girl in the distance. Preparing his gun, he slowly started to walk towards her, ready to fire should the need arise.

[Cicadan]

It took her a silent moment extra of scanning his face to really recognize him. Memory was sluggish, unlike her instinct.

Scott Whitman. An honest patriot, who had already taken three kills. Good work ethic… Bridie expected him to have taken yet more lives, two days in. But still. She was heartened by the sight of him. They hadn’t been too close in school, Scott had been a scary sort. Maybe they’d been bound for the same bootcamp after graduation. Maybe not, and anyways. It didn’t matter. This was a good fight, with a good American. Exactly what she’d been looking for. She raised a hand to her brow in salute.

“It’ll be an honor to fight, Scott.” She could even giggle a bit, a light bubble escaping her throat, something that felt like a shadow of the girl who’d used to go to school and gush over the tunes and threads of boybands.

“And. You’d better not underestimate me.”

Her saluting hand dropped, her posture became limber. Combat poise, that dynamism of muscles and joints that was so easy, comfortable for her to take on. Breath control acceptable, muscle definition perhaps lacking. All details for people like the both of them to drink in at a glance.

Her weapon hand came up. Not even a moment extra beyond the greetings. She was off, charging, keeping her center of gravity stable as her thighs pumped, she cut through the air with athletic furor.

[Aura]

Her reaction was definitely what Scott had expected, especially after she had just so brazenly accused him of cowardice. Such a strange girl.

He ran through his memory to try to put a name to the girl. Her face, her voice, the way she acted… there had to be a name somewhere.

There it was, Bridie Mossberg. Very, very unusual girl. A very devoted patriot by reputation, but also something of a scatterbrain. Scott hadn’t known quite what to make of her, but going off of the announcements, it seemed that she had taken to the job that the General had laid out for her quite well.

Although the fact that she was now calling him out was very strange indeed. He was a good patriot, clearly not the type of person that she should want to fight, not unless she intended to lay down her life for him in order to let the superior patriot survive. Of course he would accept such an offer, but he would expect such a courtesy to happen at the climax, not when there was so much vermin still left to be removed.

Bridie charged at him, a move that he did not expect. Thrown off guard, he raised his gun and sprayed a few bullets in her direction. But in his surprise, he didn’t manage to steady his aim before pulling the trigger.

[Cicadan]

The advantage of Bridie’s lush volume of hair had always been it’s flouncy aesthetic. The disadvantage: combat. It had never occured to Bridie to shear her hair or at least her bangs short.

The distance between them was long, compressed into a short time frame, into the blur all the world but his still form became. Focus, she maintained focus. She hoped her parents, her instructors would be proud of her. Her peers, or those left. Bridie sped. She felt the earth fall away from her with each slam of her heel into dirt. It would push back whenever it met her, shock the bones of her knees almost out of place.

In slow motion she saw the gun raise her way. No time to react.

Until after the bullets had already missed. Poor shots. No time to be surprised, and no time to think Scott was supposed to be better than that.

Bridie could only piece together her idea at the last possible second, as her body’s terminal velocity towards his was reached. She ducked and swerved at the last second. Tossed herself to the right of the barrel of his gun, swiped down at his gun hand with whatever was left of her momentum. The sickle whistled. She was between breaths, tense as the explosion of her muscles into place settled into the afterimage.

[Aura]

Scott was already chiding himself for his failure the instant he saw his shots go wide. It was unacceptable. He was supposed to be precise, a perfect fighter for his country. To make such a simple mistake was the work of an amateur. It was disgraceful. He was supposed to be above such failures.

Another shock came as Bridie brought her weapon down at his hands while he was still holding the weapon, and had yet to let loose another stream of bullets. He attempted to avoid the attack, but the edge of her blade caught the far side of his right hand, and the shock of the impact of the handle from above forced him to lose his grip on his own weapon.

Dropping his weapon was annoying, and his hand injury would have to be dealt with later. Although it didn’t feel like he had been hurt badly, his pride was severely wounded. There was no way that he could be outmaneuvered, especially by a fool like Bridie. He gritted his teeth. He refused to be disrespected. He would not be outclassed.

Scott sprung as Bridie was still recovering from her own attack, lunging at her with a determined fury. Bridie may have gotten the first strike, but that didn’t change the fact that he still had a significant size advantage, and he knew how to use it.

[Cicadan]

The gun was lost. The battlefield’s odds re-weighted, a little more even.

But still against her. Scott Whitman was tall, muscular. Powerfully built with the training he’d dedicated himself nobly to. Close range, Bridie still didn’t feel safe, or assured. But fear was an emotion in the abstract, one she didn’t really choose to dwell on even consciously.

Let alone in a moment as rushed as this. No, she only felt the fury of battle as a moment and then another, chained on indefinitely. Until it ended.

Bridie’s body had stalled. Her feet had planted deep into the earth like roots, to put energy into her swipe. Scott barrelled in, and on instinct she tried to bring her kama back with a yank of her elbow.

No, not fast enough. She turned that sideways angle of her body into a roll in that direction, to retreat. But the ballast lost was her kama. It fell to the ground with a dusty clatter, and Bridie gained space. To think, to evaluate, no. Still not fast enough.

[Aura]

Once again Scott’s attack failed to connect. However, it wasn’t a complete loss. Bridie’s evasion attempt, although successful, caused her to lose her grip on her kama, leaving the dangerous bladed weapon on the ground.

This turned the tide. The kama had managed to inflict damage upon Scott, but now it was effectively out of the fight and it would remain that way if he could keep control of the battlefield. Both of them had been disarmed, but that didn’t worry him. In fact, it made him more comfortable. Now it was truly a battle of who was superior, rather than who simply had the best weapon on hand.

And of course, there was no way that he would concede that any of his classmates could be superior to himself. So in Scott’s mind, this battle was already won.

He charged in again, lashing out with his arm in the form of a wild running punch. The way he saw it, even if she kept evading him, Bridie would have to get tired soon enough. So following that idea, his plan was to keep up the aggression until she stopped getting lucky.

[Cicadan]

Bridie’s eye drifted the way of the kama for a dangerous moment.

Back, just in time. His knuckle was distorted in such a rapid motion. A blur of flesh that would explode into color and pain if it touched her.

She needed to dance around his superior force. Couldn’t do that forever. One of those things you didn’t need to think about if you knew it instinctively, knew how to hear it from your body. Her lungs were bit by bit sewed up into a stitch. Her first breath hurt.

So did her next, but she forced it all the same. She twisted her torso out of the way, barely, because the distance she needed was too much. But they remained close. One step, clumsy, his way. She hurtled, off her feet. Her forehead flew at his chin.

[Aura]

Bridie was proving to be a much more difficult opponent than he had anticipated. She had disarmed him, and now she was repeatedly dodging his attacks despite his best efforts. In is mind, this fight should have been over by now, and he should have been picking what valuables remained from Bridie’s corpse.

And then it happened. In evading Scott’s attack, Bridie had let loose a counterattack of her own, ramming her forehead into Scott’s chin. He recoiled from the attack, bringing a hand to his jaw with his eyes squinting and teeth gritted due to the pain.

Bridie had hurt him. It hurt to open his jaw very wide. She had done this. She shouldn’t even be able to fight him, and she had hurt him.

Scott glared at her, his face contorting into absolute fury.

[Cicadan]

She’d heard a crack. The dry crunch of bone exploding like shrapnel. It had been a petite sound.

She noted his glare and smirked at him. It was hard to know, in the moment, whether she’d call the emotion a genuine cheer or something more sinister. Bridie only understood bloodlust academically. Besides that, nothing.

This, this was truly her first brush with something.

She felt in control... Like she could actually do something, with the muscles of her own hands, with the electricity of her own brain! Still no time to reflect on that.

Maybe another moment of their glares silently striking like blades parried, and then! Bridie sprung forward, her fist raised. Solid stance, weight carried forward by the push and arc of her spring-like legs. A gentle battle cry, short, truncated, no discernible syllable. And her fist sailed towards his face.

[Aura]

Scott continued to rub his jaw. He felt like Bridie might have fractured something in there when she hit him. It was absurd. The perfect patriot wasn’t supposed to lose fights or get injured. He was supposed to dominate his enemies in every way. Anything else was unacceptable.

And standing across from him, Bridie… smiled? Was this girl arrogant, or just insane? She seemed devoted to trying to tear down everything he knew, and he could not stand for it. He would show her why she was wrong.

With the two of them in such close range, Scott leaned forward and threw another punch, aiming for the center of her face. If she was so insistent on trying to ruin everything, then he figured that he should beat her to the punch and ruin her face, and that was only the first step.

He felt his fist make impact, but he also felt Bridie striking his chin again, evoking a cry of furious pain as he fell backwards with shock.

[Cicadan]

Bridie’s neck pivoted only at the final possible moment just shy of ‘just in time’.

Crack went her nose. Pain hurt. Adrenaline burned

Bridie’s form hurtled forward, careened left. As per the momentum of Scott landing his blow, of Bridie failing to dodge it. Her neck was still twisting almost brokenly to one side, her attempt to redirect his punch. Knuckles had just scraped the bridge, rather than bashing right into the button.

She screeched to a halt. In the dirt, left something like skid marks. Her elbows weeped blood.



She dazedly tried to stand. Scott was moving…

[Aura]

Scott’s jaw ached terribly, overtaking his head with pulsing pain. The pair of hits to his chin had done significant damage, and he was feeling the effects harshly.

It took longer than normal to get his bearings back and steady himself again, but one thing came to mind as gravely important as soon as he noticed it: the gun. And judging by the way Bridie was moving, he wasn’t the only one to realize it.

Scott scampered towards the weapon on the ground, trying to outpace the unexpectedly tough girl as he did so. If he could just take it back, then he could finish the fight right there, and be one step closer to being the winner of the Program. But that depended on him being faster.

He lunged forward with his arms outstretched. He refused to lose.

[Cicadan]

As she evaluated the situation things barely changed. Same energy, same manic need to feel a control of her life she’d never felt before. She didn’t smile. Took the moment too seriously.

As Scott barrelled for the lost gun Bride barreled for him. Her hands now around the sash of the sweater around her waist. Undone, now in her hands. A particularly cute garrote.

He lunged.

She lunged after, of course, and with arms careening she tried to roll his neck right into the taut fabric wound through her fists. So cozy, not for long.

Everything slowed as they both fell.