AN: Before we begin, this is my longest and most complicated story up to date. Because there's so many characters, plot development is necessarily slow and character relationships may be confusing at first. Please bear with me through this experiment! Hope you enjoy. Oh, also I use country and human names very deliberately in this story, so when it switches it's not just random.
(VS)
Alfred isn't listening to the teacher's voice piping away as they speed smoothly over the barren rock. After all, he's just giving the rest of the class another pep talk of the America-is-number-one variety. Come to think of it, which of their lectures don't go this way? Can you call really call it a variety when, from infancy, it's always been one continuous message?
Alfred would like to roll his eyes, but he's gotten in enough trouble with his "disobedience," his "disgraces to the American image." Finger-shaking, punishments and all. Threatened hint of the ultimate sin: treasonous.
Cue yawn. What-fucking-eeever, man. Take a chill pill.
Honestly, though, he's pretty excited about today. The group of bouncy seventeen-year-olds is finally headed off to the Versus community. Every moment of backbreaking training, every word of abuse from the teachers, and every unpleasant surgery to graft more metal into mechanical muscles, has lead them to this.
Alfred plays with the videoscreen in front of him, tossing the projection of the BattleDome around, tiny against his palm.
Of course they've all been shown the Dome, the surrounding town, the layout of the streets over and over. Alfred can tell you precisely how to get from the spaceport to U.S.A. House to his allotted room (number 67, an awesome number, of course) easily, without ever having been there. After all, the teachers had always said, half of its skill, and the other half is preparedness.
But Alfred knows it'll be different in real life. Everything the teachers preach always is.
It's a long ride over and Alfred inevitably drifts off to sleep, bumping alert occasionally when someone jostles by him in the aisle. It is late afternoon by the time he is fully awakened, as the ship slows. Around him, his fellow fighters stretch and chat in their seats as the instruments and engines hum smoothly off. Above the buzz of conversation, the cool female voice of their pilot makes announcements:
"We have now reached our final destination. It is 16:45 in the Versus community. Please remain seated. The welcoming committee will be here shortly to greet us and guide us to U.S.A. House. At this time we have received confirmation that our belongings have arrived at the House safely. Thank you."
As the intercom clicks off, their instructors lecture them calmly—as if, they look more nervous than any of us—about the rules, how they're expected to behave, what to say if barbarians insult you, etcetera etcetera.
Again, Alfred isn't listening.
But this time, it's because there's something happening outside.
Soon the other Americans are jostling for views around the ship's transparent sides as the teachers give up. Alfred, however, is sitting at an opportunely placed seat.
A fight?
(VS)
On the ground, Francis, Antonio, and Gilbert circle each other.
Yes, it's not France and Spain and Germany.
Not anymore.
Truth be told, their enemy-ship has reached a point totally beyond the usual heights of hate spiraling around this Godforsaken planet. This isn't political competition. This is personal.
They've even gone so far as to—
"Hey, fils de salope," starts Gilbert in his grating French.
Even the sound of the enemy's language coming out of their pair of lips is enough to make the rest of the Germans flinch away. No, they seem to want to say, he's not connected to us. Really. We'll pretend this isn't pushing the limit of treason, though we feel guilty just by association.
Meanwhile, Gilbert is oblivious. Or just obstinate.
"Finally got your fucking collar off, I see. Done being Switzerland's bitch then? Or has he just changed to a different kink?"
"Running your mouth again, Gilbert, mon cher. Just make yourself look a fool," responds Francis in passable mixed German and French, as he has been insulting Gilbert in his native language for quite a while now. "Wait. Am I wrong… no, I'm sure of it. Weren't you collared until just the other day? That's funny. Switzerland's bitch, you said?"
"That's right," chips in Antonio.
"Don't agree with me," says Francis in a blade of a voice glossed with false good feeling. There are currently three long scars caressing his back, raw and fiery with pain, which Francis hates to have to give Antonio the credit for. "I'd hate for us to get along. Even the word 'us'—you understand, you stupid Spaniard, that that implies you and me, in some way? Do you get it?" He spits, a gentlemanly little circle of liquid splotching the floor. "Disgusting, the taste of the word."
Antonio's smile is burning-bright. "Don't talk to me about disgusting tastes. Just the sound of French—"
"You have a problem with it?"
"Of course! How can anyone not?" chirps Antonio. "But, obviously someone as stupid as you—"
But Gilbert has lost patience with the conversation, and terminates it by jumping towards Antonio, intent on slamming his fists in to his neck and disabling him for life.
The Spaniard's eyes instantly turn a scintillating black as the Rush capsule embedded in his neck unlocks with the adrenaline flood. He skips over Gilbert's fists, a clear two meters or so up, locking his feet together as he plummets towards the off-balance man's back. Unfortunately for him, Francis sees his chance and barrels in to Antonio halfway down, slamming him towards the ground. Grinning, Gilbert whirls around mid-lost-swing and uses the momentum to land a roundhouse kick firmly into the falling Francis' midsection.
Antonio reacts inhumanly fast, neatly rolling into a backflip as Francis is knocked away from him and landing crouched and catlike on tensed ankles. His bared teeth gleam a wet ivory, his lips a bitten red. The Rush is well and fully into his system now and it makes a beast of him, a dark leopard shadow hidden from the revealing beauty of the Spanish sun. All the other priorities, any emotion but rage, flee to the back alleys of his mind. Too soon the need to injure is the only one left standing, waving a bloody flag.
Buried deep in his fevered mind, Antonio smiles and kneels and kisses the corner of the red, submitting in a dark-blazing glorious defeat.
Up to that point, all three might have gotten away with the scuffle.
But—
America cocks his head to the side, squinting through the glass. The blonde man and the white-haired one are tussling on the ground now, leaving the brunette alone.
But what the hell is going on with his hand?
From the ground, the throng of spectators ooohs and squirms back as Antonio's gloves disintegrate in black flashes, the leathery material receding into his skin as a thick wave of shiny particles dances out from his palm. In perhaps a quarter second the brilliant vapor has condensed in to a solid metal handle, growing simultaneously downwards and upwards from Spain's outstretched hand. Flowing, flowing, like liquid yet also like air, it spins solid and grows a shadow, leaving—
"Gottverdammt!" yells Gilbert, letting go of Francis, who'd been receiving a solid pummeling and is bleeding heavily from the nose.
Shrieks of mingled delight and fear ring through the air as the axe head bites into the floor a few centimeters from Francis' arm, sending long cracks running across the ground and pieces of rock flying. Francis narrowly escapes losing his arm entirely, emerging with a long tear through his sleeve in reward for his reaction speed.
From the safety of the ship, Alfred says softly to himself, "Jesus fucking Christ."
The brunette below is easily dwarfed by the size of his weapon, especially the massive double-headed blade. But, having missed the blonde, the man simply plucks the weapon out of its deep hold in the ground like a child pulling a needle out of hay, and spins it to his side one-handed. As Alfred's vision zooms in rapidly, he sees he's grinning like a maniac.
"They're all fucking insane," declares one of his classmates.
Definitely, agrees America silently. His heartbeat is speeding up a little. He dismisses it as excitement.
And then, it gets better.
Suddenly, a blast of noise explodes down the street, loud enough to cause Alfred to jerk back from the rattling glass and headbutt the person behind him. As he apologizes, the crowd shrinks away rapidly, literally pulling into the streets leading onto the courtyard, most of it dispersing and the braver part sticking it out.
Because that idiot trio were in trouble before, but now they're fucked and this is waytoo good to be missed. First day back, and it's already starting again.
The students around Alfred overwhelm him. There's a lot of yelling and ooooh-maaan-ing and other delicious gossipy noises. Alfred yells a protest and elbows his way back in, ending up with his glasses squished into the pane. Behind the lens, his eyes whir, click and refocus automatically.
Wait, what?
The weapon is gone, and its owner is pale and staggering.
And that spreading red pool.
Is that?
In the courtyard, Gilbert and Francis immediately let go of each other as silence congeals around them. It's almost comical how fast they end up on opposite sides of the street and as far away from Antonio as they can get. Like little kids. Caught. Guilty.
There is a loud click as the cartridge falls to the ground and a faint thud as Antonio follows, to his knees.
"Not you fucking people again."
Alfred is puzzled. He can distinctly hear the man speaking some strange language—an outsider, clearly—but, simultaneously, he can understand perfectly well what he is saying. And no one is challenging him.
In the confusion someone yells, "That's Switzerland!"