Chapter Twenty Nine
When people say it was all a blur, what they're really saying is that their conscious minds tried to slow down what happened to make sense of it, instead of speeding up to meet it. At least, that's what Wraith believed. She didn't know where she'd gotten that from, whether it was whispered to her in the mess of her early days, the jumbled fog that a lot of her days sometimes fell into after her escape. But it made sense.
The brain was just another muscle that needed training, a set of instincts to hone. You had to be reactive in the Games, or you were dead meat waiting for the final bullet.
This ghosted over Wraith's mind as she bolted through the trees, an absent tangential thought in a corner of her mind while the Voices were calling commands. Just because she didn't stop to look at it properly didn't mean it wasn't there in the peripherals. The Games were a lot like that, she'd learned. The landscape of her own mind was as much a space as the one she was physically in, just like the Void was. It helped, to think of it like that.
Her ankles would be torn from the brush, if it weren't for the wraps of fabric there to prevent just that. There was nothing she could do about her footfalls, the sounds much too loud, but she hoped the ongoing fire would be enough distraction. they'd been ambushed, and quickly third-partied. It might even work to her advantage, if she could get in and get him out without stopping.
"Shit, my shields-"
"Get out of fire, duck and cover." she barked back instantly, sensing the familiar rise in the terrain that told her the steep drop into the flattened ditch path awaited just through the next thick copse. Rookies might not see it coming, but Wraith was no rookie. She knew the Arena inside out. She felt the ground tell her.
"On it."
She thought maybe she heard it, faintly, the sound of his tech and he activated his cloak. Or maybe it was just that she knew he must have. As she burst through the tightly woven trees, she launched herself from the edge, hitting just right with the ball of one foot to hurl herself into the air. The reactive yell was too late, because she'd already torn open the air like a fish in water, letting the drop carry her to the ground as she whirled on Mirage's position, blinking dangerously on her wrist.
"The- it's her!"
The gunfire smattered the portal opening where she'd left it; a rend in the fabric of the air just above the overhanging dirt and grass above the ditch. By the time they knew her play, they'd be too late. She already knew that.
She danced between thrown grenades, feeling the blasts impact vaguely in her path as the two teams turned on her, too afraid to focus fully because they each were there, too aware of the danger she posed to ignore her completely. Confusion was her friend, here. Her wrist pinged. Someone had decided to take advantage of her distraction, and taken down one of the others. Responsive fire ensued but Wraith paid it almost no heed, keeping it in her peripheral mind as she located his rock. She rounded it in front, blurring the air just enough to make their aim skew.
"Don't stop." she snapped the instant she was through, one hand catching the shoulder of his holosuit and hauling him into the line of sight to gain momentum, "Run!"
He followed her, his feet tripping only once. She'd thank his reflexes later, for not querying her while she dragged him into fire without shield. As she'd expected, the dynamic of the fight slowed them all enough, and by the time they'd turned their crosshairs on them Wraith was gone, and Mirage with her.
Their momentum carried them out, and in seconds they were re-emerging to tumble back down amongst the trees. Wraith slipped through the trunks like a shadow but Mirage, being less prepared for the drop, - or indeed the Void at all, - crashed into the thick underbrush with a bitten-off curse, his shields clinking when he scrambled to his feet again amongst the surprised volley of rounds that were turned their way too late.
Wraith located the abandoned loot of her two kills, bodies retrieved already by the unobtrusive extraction teams and probably already halfway to the MedStation. Her Hemlok was still somewhere, of course, but she tore open the crate that had been left where Lifeline had fallen. They didn't have time for a break, but she needed a second weapon.
"Warn a guy, next time."
Wraith didn't look at him, standing where he'd approached and rubbing his shoulder.
"Your shields need filling."
His snort betrayed his irritation as more than his expression would lead her to believe, and Wraith said nothing further while he pulled out a shield cell and twisted the pull. The cooling barrel of the Carbine slid against her palm when she retrieved it. She pocketed the extra clips of Light ammo and two grenades, trading her helmet out for the golden glint of the Medic's. Mirage dug through Bangalore's gear, swift and efficient, at least. By the time she'd dumped her shotgun, he was shouldering his rucksack once more.
She met his eye with a curt nod, and his lips pursed just for a second.
"I got Path's Banner."
Wraith took the lead, skirting the thinner areas of cover and abandoning the fight that was wrapping up, for the ticking of the Ring timer was getting urgent. They'd be better off in end-game territory, with any stolen moments the could salvage to prepare for whoever else was left alive.
"There aren't any Beacons left."
"I know." he answered.
Wraith didn't have anything else to say on the topic, least of all when the expression she caught on his face was… cryptic. She felt the frown between here own eyes, but he offered nothing more so she left it alone. If he wanted to carry a Banner he couldn't utilise for a Respawn, that was his business. To Wraith, it was a strange and unexpected sentimentality.
"The bunkers are our best bet." she said instead, setting a brisk pace despite the uneven terrain.
"Lead the way, Kill Leader." he chirped, obnoxious grin back in place.
~.~
You're in their sights!
They'd deduced her path. Wraith threw herself to one side well before the door she'd entered through even began to fall closed behind her, but they had the advantage and the Eva was a meagre two feet away.
The shell shredded the last of her shields. Her wrists burned too badly from her latest trip onto the sanctuary of the Void. She was stuck in this path for now. Wraith stumbled from the impact, fingers racing for a grenade. She ducked the next shot, palming the Thermite into one hand and hurling it at Bloodhound's feet. While they were forced to stamp out the fire licking up their ankles, Wraith was already sprinting for cover behind the nearest-
The pellets tore into the back of her thigh, and her leg gave out, inches from safety. Shit. The R301skidded from her fingers when they shot the hand raising it. Wraith drew a sharp breath and rolled away form the next shot, but the fourth caught her in the hip before she could find her feet and she landed hard on her shoulder once more.
The pistol.
Wraith ignored the tearing pain in her side, adrenaline surging her torso forwards even as instinct screamed to go the other way. Her palm scraped along the grip, and though she curled herself away the instant it did she wasn't fast enough. The pellets tore into her chest, nearly blinding her with the sheet lightning of agony. She hissed and bared her teeth, pulling the gun level.
The tremor in her arm, quite probably from nerve damage, sent her shots wide. Breathing was growing difficult, and there was blonde on her tongue. In her mouth, as she fired.
Move!
Wraith rolled away from their next shot and hard onto her elbow as Mirage's cloak dissipated. He glanced to her, and it clicked. Bloodhound swung the barrel of the Eva toward him and tugged back the pump. The sound was clear and familiar as the moment fractured in Wraith's mind.
Now!
She didn't think. She choked out an unintelligible cry and spun the pistol in her hand, snapping her wrist back to send it pinwheeling across the floor.
And Mirage, in an almost alarming display of dexterity, spun past the blast of the gun and reached down. His weight rested neatly on the ball of one foot, the image jarring, a modified ballet move in a fight to the death. The pump grated out again with deadly intent. Mirage's hand flicked, fingers catching the edge of the borrowed P2020 and drawing it up in the same instant his other foot hit the ground again.
The shotgun blast destroyed all other sound, until the blare of the end-of-game cannon shattered the air. Wraith drew breath. It was all she could do for a moment to stare at Mirage where he stood, her pistol steady, watching Bloodhound fall to the ground.
Time froze. Or maybe they did, Mirage turning to her as the music filled the room, his eyes wide as he sought her. A strange, hysterical kind of laugh threatened to leave her throat at the expression on his face. Adrenaline rushed around her body, taking enough edge from the pain to keep her vision clear.
"We did it," he breathed, blinking, gun still held cocked in his hand, "we did it."
Wraith felt a faint smile touch her lips, blaming the realisation of victory for the way it felt in that instance to watch the Trickster turn to the gun in his hand as though it were somehow in possession of untold power.
"Welcome to the Champion's Board." she returned, slumping heavily on her good arm as it dawned across his face just what he'd done.
He turned to look back at her with a new grin on his face, something not quite obnoxious and not quite not obnoxious. Something… Something new. Wraith imagined, for the briefest heartbeat, that she was seeing a part of him he'd been able to keep hidden until right then.
A fanciful and awkward thought probably caused by bloodloss, that disappeared as the sound of the retrieval ship registered in her ears.
"I won." he loosed a giggly, breathless kind of laugh and threw his head back, arms thrown out to his sides, "I won!"
When he turned her way to help her to her feet as the Medics arrived, his familiar trademark grin was fully back in place. He bragged and flirted with the team on board the ship as they stemmed Wraith's bleeding and patched his more minor injuries, but Wraith couldn't bring herself to say anything scathing while he babbled.
"I'm good, but there's two of me." he chirped delightedly as they began work on Wraith onboard, his expression bright and gleeful, "So I'm good twice! Check out that math."
She swallowed down the pithy retort that danced to her tongue. After all, a first victory as an Elite is a hard-won Championship, and he should be allowed to enjoy it. At least that's what Wraith told herself as she grew drowsy under the high-grade painkillers, to avoid thinking about how it hadn't been as unpleasant as she'd feared to fight beside him again.