G'day mates! I'm not Australian and this is not your average victorious fic. Nor is it an Australian victorious fic. I don't know where I'm going with this. Shut up and don't ask questions, because I can't answer them. I don't know what the point of this fic is, I don't know the backstory, I don't know what's happening. All I know is that I was watching Star Wars the Clone Wars, and then, BOOM, this happened. Have fun. ;3
She sits in her corner
Singing herself to sleep
Wrapped in all of the promises
That no one seems to keep
She no longer cries to herself
No tears left to wash away
Just diaries of empty pages
Feelings gone a stray
But she will sing
'Till everything burns.
- everything burns - ben moody ft. anastacia - though i'm quite partial to james durbin's version -
Jade felt splinters tear through the back of her jacket as she fell against the wall of a dark, decaying barn. Or, shed. Or, country church. Some type of wooden building. Didn't matter. She was going to die anyway, and this place would be her grave. Secretly she prayed it was a church. That would make things convenient.
Her heart beat faster than what was probably healthy for her. Blood thundered against the sides of her head, creating an ocean-like roar in her ears. Her breath came in ragged gasps, the lack of oxygen sent black dots dancing across her already dim vision. She was going to die, and she was going to die alone.
Desperately, she clutched her empty pistol to her chest as she heard explosions in the distance. An orange glow illuminated the building for a few brief seconds, allowing Jade to give the place a quick survey. Definitely a barn. Well, so much for the church idea. Sliding along the wall until she was seated on the straw covered floor, Jade gave herself a glance as well. Not too bad. Blood seeped from the open scar of years-old wound on her arm, and she could already see nasty bruises forming on her leg. Every breath she drew felt like she was filled with shards of glass. Broken rib? Or two? So, maybe she wasn't going to die alone, but she was still alone.
All it took was one freaking second. One second she was holding tightly to Cat's wrist, trying to drag her ahead of the approaching front, the next second, the girl had run off. Probably in search of her brother. That girl saw every tall skinny blonde male as possibly being her brother. No one has the heart to tell her that her brother was most likely dead. Their type didn't last long. And by "their type" Jade meant any of the victims of the radioactive fallout years ago. Or, radiation fallout. Nuclear fallout? Whatever the hell it was, it screwed up a lot of kids. Cat and her brother had the privilege of being born in one of the most contaminated places west of the California border. Lucky them. The fallout was worldwide, no one was completely free of it. Not Jade. Not Robbie or André or Tori or Beck, or any of the gang. "Gang" being a relative term. Either way, it did things to people, for better or for worse.
Maybe Shapiro was in the "better" category. The kid was a flippin' genius. Of the more eccentric kind. He even had the nerd look and crappy social skills to go with it. Despite that, he was always right in the middle of their plans, giving direction and seeing patterns in everything. His brain worked in ways Jade couldn't even imagine. Though, he did think his puppet was a real person. Ok, not so "better" after all. But he was on their side.
Ha, as if there were sides. It was first come, first serve. Dog eat dog. Every man for himself. All your typical clichés. That's the world they lived in. They were born there, they grew up there, they died there. No one had control over the fighting. Death to the weak, the cowardly and the innocent victims. Not that any of them were innocent. Jade had looked into the large eyes of a small girl, barely old enough to talk, to walk, and she had pulled the trigger without hesitation. Those were her orders. Later that night she had stabbed Shapiro in frustration and then sobbed for an hour, until Beck told her, in no uncertain terms, to stop blubbering and focus on the mission.
Beck Oliver. The leader of their band of merry men. They weren't merry, and the boy was hardly a man. Just a kid forced to do what all kids had to do. Fight to get on top of the food chain. Don't be the weakest link, because the weakest link was the first to go. Maybe in another life, another world, another reality, they could have had some kind of relationship. Hell, they had a relationship now. But maybe in another life, they could have had something better. What they had now was dark and twisted, moments stolen away in the attics of abandoned houses which were blown into oblivion mere hours later. Conversations in desperate whispers while riding to their deaths in the back of a van. They always survived. They always did it again, promising each other that this was the last time. Eventually, one of them wouldn't make it back.
Footsteps caught Jade's attention. The flames from the previous explosion had dimmed so that she could barely see her hand in front of her face. She closed her eyes, willing her heart to slow down, to stop beating so loud that it echoed off the walls. A hand brushed against her shoulder. She turned quickly, dark hair whipping across her eyes, pointing her useless gun at whoever was about to kill her. Better to go down with a fight, eh? Oh god, Beck's Canadian ways were rubbing off on her.
Now a blindingly white light was shining in her eyes. She lashed out, trying to at least cause some annoyance to her killers. One of her hands connected with a fistful of dreads. Huh. Interesting. Eyes adjusting to the bright light, she found herself face to face with André and Vega. Oh. Great. Vega.
Tori didn't belong here. Sure, she may have proven herself as far as the fighting went, but she was still a goody-two shoes, know-it-all, perfectly annoying, whiny little princess. She still thought everyone could be saved, that they could find peace. Liar. No, not a liar, just naïve. She wasn't used to this kind of stuff. Her parents had money, possessions, or at least they had those thing until the fighting had spread. Word was that the Vegas house had just exploded one night, killing everyone it save for Tori and her brat of a sister, Trina. Trina had been missing for six months. Dead, most likely. Tori survived. It took a little work to get her into fighting shape. Three weeks with Beck and Cat in the basement of The Gorilla Club helped. Rumor said more people died trapped down there in a single day than anywhere else. Still, Vega just didn't get it. It would probably kill her sooner or later. Sooner being the preferable time. Plus, she made eyes at Beck.
André was cool enough, though his loyalties weren't always clear. Also, he stuck with his deranged grandmother. Most people would have left her for dead, but not André. The boy was just too nice. Compassionate. Almost like Vega, except that André knew when to draw the line at nice. Harris was known for being a killer. When he was in battle, he was a maniac, to the point it was a little scary. Legend says he once got so caught up in a fight that he had ended up obliterating both sides. Not just the enemy, but his comrades as well. By himself. Jade liked him.
Now Vega and Harris were pulling her to her feet. In the distance, Jade could make out the outline of a tank, with a curly haired freakshow popping his head up through the hatch. Enter Sinjin Van Cleef. Jade wasn't sure if even radiation could be held responsible for that boys problems. He was good in a fight though, despite the fact he was a wee bit on the insane side. He creeped Jade out. Plus, he made eyes at her.
Without a word, the three teens rushed to the tank, ignoring the shrill sirens and screams that were a part of their world. There wasn't time to talk as Sinjin slammed the tank hatch closed behind them and jumped into the drivers seat. Jade wanted to talk. She wanted to scream and rant and cry. Why had they come back for her? A simple saying dictated the rules in battle. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. If that meant someone had to be left behind, for the sake of saving the rest of them, then so be it. If you got left behind, that was your fault. Don't expect anyone to go back, looking for you. You're insignificant in the big picture. Hasta la vista, baby.
They reached base in record time. Base, for now, was an abandoned high school. Hollywood Arts. Art was right. It covered the inside and outside of the building, from top to bottom. All art, graffiti, gang signs, masterpieces, children's work. Destroyed, re-drawn, destroyed again. It had been home for nearly a year. The people inside came and went, were killed, were born, but the building never faltered.
As they walked, ran, through the doors, Jade passed familiar faces. There were also unfamiliar faces, and familiar faces that were missing. Cat stood in a corner, crying while Shapiro rubbed her back. As they passed them, Cat began screaming apologies and nonsense at Jade. Jade ignored her. There would be time for that later. They continued down the halls, and Jade couldn't help but notice all the broken and dying bodies that littered the ground. Lane rushed around, trying in vain to save people, or at least console them at the end. It was going to start stinking. Sikowitz rounded one of the corners and nearly ran André over. The balding man mumbled about coconuts and roses and a woman named Nancy. The man was crazy with a capital c. Apparently, he had led his own sort of "freedom fighters", until he had been shot in the head. It was considered a miracle he had survived, but sometimes Jade wondered if he would have been better off just dying on that potato field in Idaho.
Sinjin flung open the doors of what they called The Blackbox Theatre. Mission control. Headquarters. The place where things got done. Beck was there, talking to Burf and Robbie, who had somehow managed to get there first, despite the fact that he had just been with Cat, and that Jade hadn't seen him get ahead. That boy was just plain strange.
Beck looked up as the four teens entered the room. He gave all of them a once-over, because what sort of leader would he be if he didn't?, but let his gaze linger on Jade. His eyes questioned her about the blood on her arm, and the straw stuck in all places. She answered him with one of her own looks, which she hoped he understood meant that she was mostly fine, and to quit worrying. He got the memo and then he snapped back into his Leader Beck mode. No time for favoritism. He never tried to keep her away from the dangerous missions, never tried to keep her safe in a fight beyond what was expected of a leader. He hadn't gone back for when she was left behind, hadn't broken that oh so sacred rule. That's how their relationship worked. Now he was calling everyone to attention. They had a new target, an enemy base just a few miles east. They were leaving at dawn. They probably wouldn't make it back alive. But that's life, and until you're dead, life just keeps going on.
the end...?
Like I said, don't ask. I'm still not sure what this was about, but I find it enjoyable. What about you guys? Good? Bad? Did you all give a fangirl squeal over the Spock quote? Criticism is welcome and flames are met by marshmallows. Reviews make me ridiculously happy. Have a great life. Goodnight world.