Author Note: Hey all, sorry about the late updates. My internet provider is killing me. If you live in Canada and have Telus – well, you know my pain. Shaw is absolutely no better and it makes me terribly sad. This is another chapter that I'm not entirely sure about it, but constructive criticism is wanted.
*UPDATED July, 06, 2015
Semi-Automatic: Final Draft
Part One: Misplaced
Chapter Four: Counting the Hours till Midnight
"Hey, Harry – are you even listening?" Ava demanded halfheartedly upset while brandishing a pale hand inches from his nose. He flinched, turning to face Ava who was vying for his divided attention. She offered him a flippant smile, chuckling as she dramatically – and loudly – dropped her hand back to the table in mock frustration. "You zone'd again,"
That was happening a lot more than Harry cared to admit. Moments of entirely blank thought that were succeeded by brief bouts of not remembering where the Hell he was. "Uh… sure, sorry. Wh.. What was it?" He asked sheepishly, chin ducked towards his chest in embarrassment.
"Oh nothing," she scoffed; flipping her hair exaggeratedly over her shoulder. "Only trying to have a conversation with you – no big deal."
"Leave him be, Ava, you know he's a case and a half." Jak piped up across the table, grinning at Harry's glare.
"Rich coming from you, mate, how's the paranoia going? Still get twitchy in the VR, yah?"
Ava snorted, nearly choking on her drink, as Harry flashed the glowering Jak an impish smile.
It was a rare morning that Ava was this friendly - humorous even - so perhaps it wasn't going to be a completely terrible day. Because, Merlin knows, that Harry needed a break. The days after Hell Week had fallen into a strict routine; the physical training, lessons, and therapy sessions had been coordinated effortlessly together in a prefect system with a near prefect cover. 'He's human,' they would say, 'he has reactions to naturally occurring Eco. It will fade; he'll get used to it. Remember - he signed on for this.'
They were broken excused tied together to string about the clueless and unqualified. Harry was left often wondering how he was still alive, let alone still training beside Ava and Jak. He failed most training exercises, he failed the written courses countless times, but he was still here; still training with the rank-in-file.
Honestly, there was a simple answer to it, he knew. They needed him; he had lasted the longest. Even if he was abysmal at being a solider – if he died – his corpse was still a wealth of clinical information.
And maybe he was changing.
He had nearly missed it at first. If he hadn't look too hard into it, he wouldn't have noticed at all. It was nothing like making glass disappear or teleporting yourself onto a roof - but it was something. It was something like lying in his tent and being startled awake by shouting. At first he had blamed Jak, thought to snap or kick at him in warning, but the elf had been snoring beside him and Ava curled up against the cold nights in her corner. He had listened, confused, and realized the voices belonged to two soldiers several tents down. It was like he was sitting in their tent with them - but it only took a second to overwhelm him. He was laid out by it, as is something physical was crushing him into his mat while a hundred different voices shouted in his ears. He blacked out, at some point, and woke half deaf the next morning.
It was something like 'zoning out' all the time. He could be so aware of those around him, but the next second Harry couldn't register when someone was talking to him. It was disorientating and had earned him the nickname 'Space-Case' from the other cadets. It hadn't manifested in any other way, but it left Harry anxious. What if these small changes were a precursor to something ten times more horrifying? Was he just being paranoid? He didn't know and he wasn't about to ask Jak if he had experienced anything like this with his Dark Eco.
Jak.
Jak had become what Harry imagined an overprotective elder brother might be like. Ava, on the other hand, had taken time to warm to. She was frigid and demanding on the best of days. Growling disappointingly at Harry's lack of experience and skill, only easing up when Jak had warned her to leave him be. The look on his face had been deadly, so much so Ava had turned around and never once goaded him again. They both had begun to wonder if the girl ever smiled or knew what the word 'civil' meant. She was a natural born leader and in no way a pacifist. She was not a people person.
Words, she had said, weren't meant for the battlefield. You can't reason with a Metal Head, kill it before it kills you. It was her mantra and she lived her life by it.
Jak stood on the opposite side. He would rather find a non-violent solution. He would fall back on gestures, lost for proper words that had Harry playing charades trying to figure out what he had meant. Yet, when it came to cost and Jak bared his teeth, his bite was far worse than his bark. It terrified Harry sometimes, seeing the skill and effortless way he could rend a sparing partner to the ground. He was never careless or brutal, but efficient and knew where to hit to knock a man off his feet in seconds.
'Where did you learn that?' Harry had asked.
'I'm used to fighting monsters, people are easier to fight.' He had told him vaguely.
"What now?" Harry grunted, balking back from Jak as he jabbed his spoon into the back of Harry's hand. The blonde jerked his chin behind them, a sour expression turning his lips. Ava turned with him, amber eyes flashing towards a gaggle of soldiers near the doors. They were talking boisterously, exchanging slips of paper, and cred-chips.
"I bet he won't make it through first round," laughed the tallest, pointedly looking at Harry.
"What did they say?" Jak asked quietly, leaning across the table frowning at Harry's snarl.
"Nothing new," Harry muttered caustically, Ava only shrugging as Jak sought her for an explanation.
It shouldn't surprise him. It shouldn't make him feel worse, but it did. He already knew he was scrapping the barrel – he didn't need it rubbed in his face. It was like being at the Dursleys all over again.
"For the Fights, I imagine." Ava concluded with that absolute certainty of hers.
"'Fights?'" Jak questioned, folding his arms beneath him for support. "What fights?"
The woman gave them both an exasperated look. She'd long gotten used to how much either of them didn't know about the facility they had supposedly 'signed up for.' Harry had a feeling she was too smart, and perceptive, to not realize something wasoff about the pair. "They are evaluations on our progress. It's one of the rare times we can relax before we're thrown into the Arena – We also get to 'fraternize' with the second years." She raised her eyebrows suggestively, winking at Jak who rolled his eyes and Harry who forced himself to chuckle.
"Relax?" Jak snorted into his water, "Here? Yeah bloody right."
"Well ain't you just a bucket of sunshine this morning," Ava drawled beside him.
"When are they happening?" Jak asked.
Suddenly shooting up from the bench, Ava flourished her hand towards the door. "Well, let's go check it out. I wanna get a good seat for it." Half the Hall seemed to agree with her, a mass of people rising less enthusiastically as Ava, and moving towards the open doors. "They probably already have it set up," she added as an afterthought, melding into the sea of cadets flanked by Harry and Jak.
By the time they reached the open field in the Pit, the Arena had already been set up. Bleachers ringed the hexagon arena and they were already half filled with second and first years clambering for a good spot. Ava, when Jak questioned her, explained that the 'Arena' was made from Terraformers. A structure technology capable of transforming on hitting the reset, the ring was separated from the bleachers by a walk way and sectioned off by towering blue walls.
Blue Eco Shielding, Harry reminded himself, having only recently learned about it in one of his few practical lessons. It extended nearly fifty feet in the air, blinking at a set rhythm as Eco coursed through the relays. Once or twice a cadet got too close and was harmlessly jolted by the almost playful sparks from the open panels. It would leave them jittery and practically bouncing in spot.
The first fight started almost as soon as the last seat had been filled. A woman from Group Ten nervously slipped through the bay doors and bit at her lip anxiously as the wall set back into place with a hiss. The officer just outside punched an orange button on the terraformer's control panel and the shielding became denser with a loud warning alarm.
The arena flood gate opened up at the left base, the crowd quieting down as the growl resounded off the hollow walls menacingly. With a keening screech, a large creature lumbered out and Harry's felt himself tense. It was something like the creatures that had attacked him in the jungle. They had been four-legged, beastly things – this was different. This one stood on hind-legs with a humanoid form. Its body was plated in bone-armor and the defining gem of their species nestled in its chest not on the top of its head. The creature's hands, five-fingered and webbed, reminded Harry of the mermaids he had seen in the Black Lake.
"What the Hell is that?" Jak blurted out beside him.
"A Metal Head," Ava told him, "They're the leading cause of war in Haven City. Ivory Jungle doesn't have many – but most look like that." She jerked her chin towards it, disgusted by it.
"A Metal Head…" Harry echoed thoughtfully, "That's what they were?"
Jak, chin in palm, muttered disdainfully. "A large ass Metal-Head."
Ava chuckled. "Wait till you see a Wasteland Metal Head, boys, that's something."
The crowd roared and jeered as the woman dodged the first attack and held her own before being knocked down by a well-aimed clawed fist to the temple. To her credit, two more first years had gone up against it and failed miserably. The third, a second year, marched up to the bay doors with his arms held high in confidence as the crowd stomped their feet for him. The creature, as sentient as Ava suggested they were, seemed insulted as the cadet moved into its line of sight. The first attack was the same as the others, arms spread wide and its head low in a charged assault. Where the others dodged, the cadet crouched and dove for the legs. The Metal-Head screeched indignantly as it crashed to the floor.
The man gave it no time to recover or comprehend before it went for the gem. It came loose in one of the most obscene sounds Harry had ever heard. A sucking, sickening squelch as the creature fell limp, gushing purple blood onto the metal grated floor - its eyes, blazing, were now void and vacant. He stood back from the Metal Head's corpse, covered in its blood, and grinned wickedly to the audience thrusting his hand up in a 'peace' sign. The stands erupted, Ava leaping to her feet and hollering just as the others did.
Jak and Harry, however, could only frown at each other.
"I'm screwed." Harry hissed.
"… You'll be fine." Jak reassured and Harry would have believed him if his eyes didn't scream everything else.
In a burst, the creature dissolved into globs of dark, chaotic purple energy that the cadet casually ignored as he sauntered out of the ring. They hovered for a moment; miniature storms each one, before angrily lurching at the shield. More than one person lurched back when they hit the shield and dissipated – Jak on the other hand…
"Whoa, mate…" Harry muttered, startled, while Ava whistled in admiration. Jak, with inhuman speed, had leapt up three rows. He stood there, panting, before mumbling an apology to the cadets he'd barreled over. He slumped back into his seat between them, burying his face in his hands shamefully.
Once Ava's attention as drawn away by the cadets placing bets, Harry placed a hand on Jak's trembling shoulder. "Jak?"
"Dark Eco," he croaked, fingernails digging into his hairline. "I think… I think it was drawn to me… I-"
"Group Nine, Number Three!?" The officer called out through a megaphone, intrigued only when everyone collectively turned on Harry.
He wasn't too proud to say he might have thrown up at that moment. Jak, pulling his hands away from his face, bit at his lip as he considered Harry with stricken eyes – he parted his lips as if to say something motivational, but he fell short. Harry barely got himself to stand from the bleacher and somehow he got himself to the aisle and down to the walkway. He heard Ava mutter a doubtful good luck and Jak looked terrified while attempting to look confident.
There was no situation where Harry saw himself coming out of this alive. The only outcomes were bloody and involved body bags. He tried to stop the tremors in his hands, but his tells were in his tensed brow and sweaty palms.
The operator halted him at the bay door, finger raised as he hit the lock and gestured for him in.
"I'm bettin' on you kid, prove me right."
Beyond a faint nod, Harry didn't know how to respond. He walked, slowly, to the middle of the platform and waited.
'Maybe,' he giggled hysterically to himself, 'they'll let me skip a session if my bones are paste.'
He tensed as the doors shuddered up and slid back. 'I've faced a dragon.' He reasoned with himself, trying to summon his Gryffindor courage.
The ground shook, rolling and bouncing beneath Harry in quakes that threatened to send him to the ground. The creature didn't walk out of the pit, it charged out. He took a step back, the crowd gasping as the thing rose like a demon out of Hell. Harry would have gladly fallen on his knees and prayed for salvation had he thought it would help. It was a bone-plated rhino with a long, barbed tail that swayed angrily behind it. Its foul breath rolled over him in a heave, the beast was so massive its front canines were the length of Harry's torso. When it roared, furious and frothing at the mouth, it shook the Blue Eco Shields.
'I had a wand then…'
Terror drove Harry to dive as it charged; panic sent him scrambling back to his feet. The next attack came like lightening and his reflexes were a fraction too slow. The barbed tail of the monster slashed inches from his face as he flung himself blindly backwards against the shield. He had expected support, but met fire instead. The agonized shout startled even the monster as Harry peeled himself away from the wall, falling to his knees in a daze. The bare skin that had met the Eco-charged wall was nothing more than cratered meat and blood blisters that spat blood down the back of his legs. The skin peeled and cracked, Blue Eco sparks jumping across it in searing volts.
His head was swimming, vision blackening, and his body was screaming. He felt like he was dying.
The air left his lungs when the tail slammed into his side, propelling him across the arena before a spike drove between his ribs. He gasped, spitting blood, as he was lifted and slammed to the ground with vicious intent. Repeatedly, up and down, up and down. Each crash tore the air from his lungs; each toss took the world away from him. With a casual flick of its tail, it tossed him violently into the shield before he slid down a bloody heap before it.
"By the Precursors," Ava swore in horror. Jak's fingers curled into the metal bleacher beneath him so tightly, it cut into him. The Metal Head continuously tossed, beat, and bit at Harry's lifeless body. Jak couldn't even tell if the boy was alive anymore… He was dead weight, tossed freely, and landed in haphazard piles before the creature was on him again.
He forced himself to look away, nearly sick at the sight. The guards stationed at the door questioned whether to stop the fight or not. Any other cadet would be left to die -death happened in Invisera. It happened all the time – but it couldn't happen to Harry. The panic in their eyes was not caused by concern for Harry's life, but rather Neverous threats. He ground his teeth together bitterly, knowing that look intimately. Jak had seen it so many times on the faces of the scientists that used him like they used Harry. When he had fallen into cardiac arrest during his own experiment or when they couldn't stop the bleeding.
They were afraid of what would happen to them if Harry died. What would their punishment be if they allowed the experiment to die on their watch. They feared for their jobs, not for Harry's life.
"Get up!" he found himself shouting, no begging, in the silence that reigned over the audience. He was on his feet, his arm searing with pain as he cupped his hands to his mouth. "You'll be killed!"
The Metal Head's large tail loomed over Harry, likely to kill him on impact. One of the guards whirled on the operator, demanding him to open the shield – but even then Jak knew they couldn't save him in time. His stomach clenched, hand clawing at the arm that burned and itched horrendously as the tail fell. He wouldn't let himself tear his eyes away from Harry, praying that he wasn't watching the last few moments of the boy's life.
Like a man drowning, Harry heaved for air – green eyes wide and wild narrowed on the tail rushing towards him. The creature roared victoriously, Ava buried her face into Jak's shoulder as it landed. His heart seized, stomach falling away as the creature growled and stomped it's feet triumphantly. Jak barely registered the pain in his arm was gone the moment he spotted the bloody teenager standing inches away. The relief nearly took his legs out from beneath him as the crowd jumped to their feet cheering.
"Thank God," Ava wheezed with relief.
Jak wouldn't relax, he couldn't.
The creature wasn't dead yet...
Harry had enough in him to get back to his feet, beaten body slowly starting to fail. His legs were sluggish, heart hammering in his chest so hard he feared it might burst. He skirted consciousness, body wracked with unimaginable pain, while his arm burned as if he had dipped it in acid.
The Metal Head charged, then.
Time held its breath as the creature came. Those few precious moments before the Metal Head reached him were agonizingly long. He dreaded the end, but savored them. They tormented him with thoughts of everything he had survived… Voldemort's return, the Triwizard Tournament, the experiments… So much, he had made it through so much and it was going to end. He was going to end. There was nothing he could do to stop this and that crushed him. He was going to die so very far from home in the middle of some forsaken jungle to a frothing mouthed rhino.
His death, fate decided, was to be by a Metal Head.
He wasn't okay with that.
It wasn't right and it made him angry.. It burned inside him bitterly, damning fate and damning Voldemort. He damned them all and let go of the sinking ship. Rational thought fled in the wake of a burning hatred boiling in the pit of his stomach. A force inside him tensed his shoulders, worked his legs against rational thought to put him in front of the charging beast. The creature was inches from him and in that last second, he flung his fist and searing arm. The impact itself should have shattered his arm, but it only felt like release. The bone crunched beneath his knuckles, sending the gem skidding across the terraformers.
The crow was so silent all Harry could only hear his own heart pounding in his ears. His chest heaved desperately, but the pain was gone. He felt nothing, no ache, no burning – just a wealth of energy and a sudden thought he might very well be invincible. His high was short, snapping away the moment the Metal Head burst into Dark Eco sparks and the audience roared a deafening approval.
They shouldn't celebrate, he thought.
Something was wrong, couldn't they see that? Something was so horribly wrong with this.
Forcing himself around, Harry fled the limelight. The operator ignored him, hands shaking on his controls, and a White-Coat was rushing to greet him. Before he had time to comprehend, she had him seated on a gurney in a medical tent and the next fight had started. He sat silently on the white linen trying to process why he wasn't still a mess of bones and bruises – even his burns had peeled away to reveal raw and fresh skin below.
Jak and Ava arrived at some point, Harry only able to offer them a weak, dazed smile.
"S… so, how'd I do?"
"If almost getting yourself kill was the goal – you did a fabulous job." Jak responded angrily, Harry flinching away – but still smiling. He was alive; he didn't care about much else - because nothing else made sense at that moment…
"You snapped a Metal Head's neck with your fist, Harry!" Ava flourished both her hands in disbelief, "Where the Hell did that come from? Don't tell me you've been holding back this entire time?"
"No… not at all." Harry breathed.
Before another question could fall from her lips, the speakers boomed. "Group Nine, Number Two."
She glared wearily over her shoulder, but let out a resigned sigh.
"Good luck," Harry told her, truly meaning it.
All she spared him was a smile, Jak nodded his good luck as she passed him. A long, tense silence passed between the two. The elf never raised his eyes from the grass, lost in troubled thought. Harry refused to break the silence in fear of Jak's response – the only sound between them the heart monitor he was latched to the crowd cheering Ava on.
"I just punched a Metal Head in the face," he spoke, realization setting in. "… and broke it." Harry swallowed the lump in his throat, daring to look up. "That's not right… is it?"
"No," Jak said quietly, "it really isn't."