Reclamation

Riley looked around the room for a moment before excusing herself and carrying Sydney to the elevator. She waited for the elevator to arrive and stepped in. She got off on the second floor, opened a random door, saw it wasn't taken, and set Sydney down on the bed. Sydney curled into the blanket quietly, clearly frustrated, and shooed Riley away. Riley came back down and took a seat, cleaning off Sydney's plate onto her own.

"She's fine." She said to no one in particular.

 

Richard stood up and stretched. "Yeah, I think I might hit the hay as well." He gave everyone a gentle smile. "Good night everyone. It was nice meeting you all. Don't kill anyone in the night, okay?" It was a half joke. He didn't want to be killed in the night. Who did? But his delivery was joking, trying to show that he trusted them enough not to.

Roxanne watched her twin rise. "I'm kind of exhausted too. It's been so exciting to meet all of you! Trust me, the beds are fabulous. You'll sleep like a baby tonight. It'll be amazing." She stood up, and almost went and hugged everyone. It took a second to decide that they weren't close enough for that. "Good night everyone! See you tomorrow!"

And with that, the twins went up to their fourth floor rooms. She gave Richard a big hug before they both retreated to their rooms for a night of slumber.

 

As the night wore on, there cam a banging from one of the rooms, followed by a whimper and a now-familiar click and whoosh Shortly afterwards, the whimper turned to a yelp and a nasty strings of curses. Another whooshing sound followed by a slamming of the door and retreating footsteps.

 

Roxanne was watching in horror as her brother was beaten up by an adult. She wanted to run to him, to protect him, but something kept her right where she stood. She barely noticed the tears rolling down her face, and when he finally disappeared, and all the adults were gone, she ran to the larger of the bloodstains and felt around. It was a trick. It had to be a trick. Did he kill him? Where did Dick go? "Richard... No... no no no no no!" she cried out.

"Where is he?! What did you do with him?! Get back here, Vanthus!" Roxanne screamed. "Give me back my brother you asshole!" She stood up and started to run to the training room but didn't make it far without collapsing to her knees and clutching her chest as she sobbed. "Give him back! He's all I had left, give him back! This isn't fair!" she shouted. "Richard!" Her voice lowered as the sobs took over her voice and everything else. Nothing else was really discernible besides the occasional plea for her brother. Now she was stuck with basically strangers, and she was terrified. She wanted to go home, or leave, or anything. This was the catch. Her heart felt ready to explode, and she knew she needed to calm down but she didn't have the comfort she wanted.

This.
Wasn't.
Fair.

 

Zein didn't stay long in the training room that night. She practiced some hand-to-hand on a dummy, working on her form. She wished  she would have brought her falx, but she guessed that doing basics with her fists would wasn't all bad. She didn't stay for long, and once she'd worked up a nice sweat, she returned to her room for a quick shower, and then went to bed. She tossed a pillow and the comforter on the ground for Malik, then pulled the sheet over herself and fell asleep quickly.

It wasn't the cold wind or the moonlight showering over Zein that bothered her. The sound of the window opening made her eyes flutter open. "Malik, was that you...?" she grumbled, finding him crumpled on the floor where she saw him last. "Jesus Christ," she said to herself, somewhat angrily. She got out of bed, staring out of the window, somewhat disappointed. She  glanced at her watch for the time, then quickly slammed her window shut to try and keep as much sunlight out as possible. She pressed her pillow against the window next, trying to use it like curtains. She quickly changed, pulling on a pair of dark men's jeans, and actually put on a shirt. The shirt was only a white tank top, but it was a start. She pulled on her jacket then, and strapped her falx across her hips, glancing at Malik to see if he was ready. She walked into the bathroom, delighted to find out she could once again brush her teeth. She finished brushing her teeth, then splashed water on her face, and tied her hair into a loose fishtail braid. Now that she was ready, she went and took a seat on her bed again. "I say we make our break for it tonight. Something doesn't feel right to me," she explained. Her eyebrows slanted downward, and her eyes seemed to be darting around nervously. She was definitely on edge. "Whatever, I guess we should go eat and get some training in?"

She stepped through the door and found herself in the foyer, along with a hundred other confused-looking kids. Immediately Zein's sense of unease was confirmed. She clenched her fist and folded her arms, waiting to see what would happen. Five adults were standing on the stairs. The oldest of the bunch began a speech before another adult wearing a crow mask interrupted him. Zein was only half-listening as she glanced around the crowd, trying to figure out where everyone was. She wanted to find Malik, at least. Sydney and Riley were on her list too. Zein realized she was somewhat attached to the naive little girls. That and Sydney had her clothing, so she had to give it back or come with.

She was still daydreaming slightly when she heard Richard's voice. "God dammit," she muttered, pushing through the crowd. "Keep your mouth shut, boy!" she called out, trying to reach him before he did something stupid. And of course, he fell for every damn taunt in the book. She pushed through the crowd, reaching Roxanne right when the fight began. Vanthus didn't waste any time; he sliced apart Richard quickly and efficiently. Zein looked at the adults, malice seeping into her veins. Her fists were clenched and a snarl tore across her visage. I'm going to kill them, she vowed to herself. Such sickening abuse of power...Zein was more than pissed, she was fucking livid. Roxanne ran towards the training room, screaming. The adults finished their speech, describing Richard's brutal murder as a minor setback. That just pissed Zein off more. She waited until pale-faced kids and emotionless teens started to filter out before she reached Roxanne.

"Hey, breathe," she said, her tone somewhat flat. "You need to calm down. Don't get yourself killed just because your brother died. Breathe. In, out. Breathe." With every word, Zein's tone slowly became softer and kinder. She leaned in close, glancing around out of habit. "I'm going to kill them. Play by their rules, pretend to obey. As soon as we get the chance, we will kill them." Her tone was scarce more than a whisper. She took Roxanne's arm and  slung it around her shoulder. She stood up, watching the girl carefully. 

"Once Malik shows up, we'll take you to your room. Just focus on breathing, alright?"

 

From deep in the crowd, a click echoed through the hush and a whoosh of flames spiraled up, looking like a maddened cobra as Abal stalked forward, a saber in his right hand, a ball of flames that had sprouted the serpent in his left. He hurled the ball as the adults disappeared, snarling loudly. Turning, he sheathed his blade and moved to Roxannes side in time to catch Zein's whisper. "Wrong....We'll do it...togethor." He growled softly, resting a hand on her shoulder for a moment before moving around to stand in front of Roxanne. Touching her shoulder, he let his anger drain away as he watched her for a moment. "I know it hurts. Trust me....but it does get better. Once it turns to anger...it gets better..." he said quietly. Standing, he looked at Zein for a moment, before he turned away, but not before she caught a glimpse of an old, unhealed pain in his eyes. He headed toward the training room, his hand clenched on the hilt of his saber.

 

Riley woke up at almost the exact same time as Sydney. The two glanced at each other tiredly, neither really cold as Sydney had a huge freaking cloak and Riley had sneaked into the cloak at night.

"What the hell are you doing?" Sydney pulled the cloak off Riley, getting up.

"It's cold." She stood as well, stretching "Did you open the window?"

"No." Sydney turned back, confused "Let's just go and eat or whatever."

They stepped out the door to find themselves suddenly in the main hall. After everything else, this seemed normal. The strange adults were there as well. Sydney listened with dawning realization of what situation they were in as Riley felt a shiver up her spine and hurriedly scanned the crowd for her friends. Then they heard Richard. And then he was dead. The adults left, taking his body with them. Sydney covered her mouth but said nothing, this was nothing- he wasn't a friend. They hadn't even spoken to each other. Then why had tears escaped her eyes?

Riley dragged the older girl with her towards Roxanne, Zein already there. She tugged Sydney's cloak off by force and draped it over the rattled girl's shoulders- she remembered people doing this after a fire back when she was young. Riley pushed stray hair from the girl's face and made sure she was in the center of her peripheral vision.

"Just listen to Zein and Abal OK? I know we all must want to kill them now- but we've seen what happened. Let's not get hasty around such powerful enemies." She gave a smile- weaker and less convincing then the others from before- as she tugged up her shirt to show various burn marks on by her waist "I know from experience."

 

Malik woke up with a groan. The floor had gotten cold for some reason he couldn't see so he turned his head and tried to find Zein, but she wasn't here. With a sigh, Malik got up and threw his blanket and pillow onto the bed and put on his white shirt and rewrapped the lower half of his face. He had slept with his pants and socks on, but now he only had one sock, so he had to spend time to look for it in the blankets he had just thrown. After finding it, he put on his boots and his weapon belt and decided that he would shower and change clothes after he had eaten breakfast. Hopefully they had toothpaste in here somewhere because he was running really low on it himself. He was still peeved that Riley and Sydney had ignored his note at the table last night and decided that, because of that, they were no longer worth his time or effort to help out.

Now fully clothed Malik left the room to look for Zein and walked right into a main hall that was packed with people. Most of them were focused on something, so he pushed his way through crowd and found the bloody scene of a fight. Someone had gotten really messed up. There were blood stains that looked like arcs, so the person was probably cut with a sword or a knife, but he couldn't be sure because there was no body for him to look at. The amount of blood he could see brought doubt if he could even heal the person before they bled out, or even if the person was already dead. Too bad I can't cure death.


After looking over the scene he started looking for Zein again to ask her what the hell was going on and if they needed to bail. He assumed she was done here somewhere simply because he had been teleported here from the room so she must have been as well. It made sense in his head at least. He had to stand on a table to look over the crowd, and got a few questioning looks when he didn't say anything. I'm looking for someone, not trying to give a speech you dunces. I just freaking got here. "If you're looking for your girlfriend, she's over there," someone yelled at him and pointed towards the training room. Malik walked towards the room and found a group of people huddled around Roxanne. Where's Dick? Malik thought as he got closer. I guess Dick is the one that got fucked up out there. That's a disappointment.

He came up behind Zein and passed her a note. "I'm guessing Dick is dead judging by the blood out there. Doesn't that girl have a bad heart too? Ask her if she wants me to look over it or fix it. It would be bad for us to lose a group member. Also, what the flying fuck is going on. Do we need to gtfo?"

 

Although not particularly tired after eating a few small morsels of the food laid out for all the children, Claire shrugged and followed suit. She opted for the stairs instead of the elevator. The exercise would keep her sharp-witted. The last thing she needed at this moment was to be caught off-guard. A little alone time would do her some good anyway––perhaps she could figure out just how to get out of this mess. She quickly realized, however, that she would not have the opportunity. The moment she entered one of the free rooms she hit the bed. Her eyes lulled. Not even tired before yet all of a sudden sleep was the only thing on her mind. She muttered half a curse before her eyes drooped shut.

. . .

Cold.

Claire had not even had the chance to pull a blanket up over herself last night. She had just fallen into the cot and slept like a babe. Her eyes fluttered then fixated into a hard stare. Glaring at the window she cursed under her breath once more. Fucking tower. Fucking child. Fucking bracelet. Fucking Roxanne and Dick and the weird boy. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She threw the blanket underneath her around herself vehemently, hating the fact that she was, indeed, shivering. Fuck this. Fuck this. Fuck this. she growled internally, trying to situate herself so that the blowing wind would not bother her as much.

Ultimately, she failed. The wind seemed to taunt her. It swirled and twirled in her room; its whistle a mocking laughter as she threw the blanket off of herself. Shit. Had she been a little more delirious she would have reached for the knife in her boot and stabbed the air with all of her might. But she was not so far gone. No. She still had her sense about her and she would not complain. She merely collected herself, adjusted her jacket, and exited her room.

She blinked. A scowl started to form. But then she realized that she was not, in fact, alone, and she forced a simple look of confusion. How did she end up on the first floor? She had climbed several flights of steps last night. Did someone pick her up and take her to a new bed? No. It did not appear so. Looking around at all the other children, she knew this was some one else's doing. Her eyes immediately shot to the adults as they entered the room.

The whirlwind of events that followed played out exactly as she would have expected. Although most of the children seemed trapped by the man's enticing gaze, Claire had managed to falter just a little bit. A slight twitch. She did not, however, speak a word. Lara would not have argued. And of course, she did not have to, for the boy––Richard––had chosen to play the fool in this grandiose production. The subsequent attack and disappearance of the stupid little hero seemed only fitting. Idiot, she thought with disdain, remaining perfectly still until all of the adults had vanished.

Claire hesitated just the slightest bit before making her way over to Roxanne. Everyone else seemed to be offering a soothing word or some sort of encouragement to the poor twinless twin. Claire wanted to gag. Stupid dick deserved it, she thought maliciously, a comforting smile coming over her face to mask her true feelings. She reached out and put her hand on Roxanne's shoulder, allowing a few fake tears (created by simply keeping her eyes open too long) to well in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Roxanne. Just... hang in there please! We'll get him back. I promise!"

Claire mentally vomited.

 

Roxanne felt slightly claustrophobic with all these people around her. "I... I need some space. Please... Back off..." she said, weakly standing up and stepping away from the group a little. "I'll... I'll figure something out. I should have read his future... I should have stopped him... God, why did it have to be my brother...?" She looked around at the group of people who had come to her, and saw how much they cared.

She used her sleeve to dry her eyes. Roxanne's expression darkened. "I'm going to kill Vanthus for what he's done. I don't care if one of you beats him up, but I want the killing blow. So I'm going to train. I'm going to beat the shit out of anyone who tries to stop me."

 

The alliance formed quickly; it was the group that met outside the gate plus the mysterious anti-hero fire man, and timid little Lara. Zein sighed, letting Roxanne do her thing. She was steady enough on her feet so she wouldn't follow the girl. "At least she's dedicated," the pale girl mused quietly. She glanced around the room. There were...A lot of eyes on them, to say the least. "Tch, little shithead deserved it. Should have been quiet," Zein said, making sure that the majority of the kids nearby could hear her. A plan was hatching in her mind, and she needed to put up her previous appearance of nonchalance and bitchiness. She grabbed Malik's shirt and started dragging him off towards the armory, out of earshot from as many people as possible.

"We're a team. Everyone else is the enemy," she muttered. "But we're helping the rest of our little 'group' subtly. We have to make the adults think it's just the two of us. Running away is no longer an option, we're stuck here." She sighed, rubbing her temples. "We're going to have to work our asses off now, y'know. Let's find some breakfast, some good gear, then let's spar until lunch. After that, I want to stand in the sun, see if I can't force myself to build a resistance for it. Sucks we're on a schedule...but I can use that to my advantage. Hopefully we won't have to do anything on the new moon; my Flow will be useless. Anyways, we'll devise some sort of signals to use, and I'll try to tip off Marcus, he seems like he's the most reasonable. But from now on, we're going to try and take on the world." Her tone was hushed and deadly serious, her eyes darting back and forth during the whole speech. She wanted to make absolutely sure that nobody was listening, even though the watches were probably bugged. She really hoped they weren't, or their plan was already down the shitter.

 

Riley stood stock still- Stay or follow Roxanne?

"Don't you dare." Sydney grabbed her hand "She said to give her space."

"She... probably needs comforting!" She whisper-yelled "And also, your cloak is draped over her shoulders like a blanket!"

"... Fine."

Riley acted as intimidating as she could- which was actually quite easy as she was used to doing this in her past- and turned to other kids who had been watching "Just gonna' make sure she understands that opposing us would be quite... unfortunate... for her." She pulled Sydney wither her, and neared Roxanne carefully, her voice quiet as she carefully alerted the girl to her presence- doing her best not to surprise her "We won't stop you. We just... want to make sure your OK. And you're a bit emotional right now- not that there's anything wrong with that- but you shouldn't be alone."

"You can vent to us or whatever. I don't think those dorks from outside the group'll follow."

 

Roxanne nodded in agreement. "I'm not hungry. I'll just... go wait for you in the training room."

She walked out to the training room and was tempted to follow Marcus to grab a weapon. But Vanthus might be there. She couldn't deal with him. Not right now. She needed to focus on her physical endurance, and work on overcoming her heart issue. That would hold her back. The last thing she needed was to collapse in the middle of battle. She didn't have her brother anymore to pick her up and carry her to bed. She was on her own.

When she was little, her mom had signed them up for ballet and karate. She would pull up to the front door in the van, and a kid would hop out, and go to class, and they'd come back later. As a prank, Roxanne and Richard decided to switch places and try each other's hobbies out. They actually both really liked them, better than their originals, and for a year they kept up this gambit until their mom found out, freaked out about gender role nonsense and Roxanne's heart, and took them both out of class. 

Roxanne still remembered several moves from that year of classes, and went to one of the training dummies. She took the cloak off and her jacket, leaving her in a t-shirt and loose cargo pants and the outerwear in a small pile near her. She was doing some basic warm-ups they did when she was a kid when Sydney and Riley walked in. They were telling her she shouldn't be alone.

Roxanne paused briefly. "I already am alone," she said, and continued. "I... I need to get better. There's so much to do. I can vent later. But you're not the person I want to vent to."

When her warmups were complete, she went to the dummy and started punching it. Hard. She imagined Vanthus's face and just kept punching it. One day, this won't be a dummy. This will be Vanthus. Her brother's murder would not go unpunished. She would not allow that to happen. 

 

Abal stood watching her, his arms crossed. "You're the one with the heart issue, aren't you?" He asked, his voice thoughtful. "And we have a healer on hand....I wonder..." He murmured, looking deep in thought. "You should use a weapon. I was studying that fucks fighting style...it looks like he can summon a weapon when he needs it, which means if you go up against him with nothing but your fists, you're gonna be at a disadvantage." After saying that, he paused, then snorted sardonically. "Hell, we're all at a disadvantage...even me. I seem to have the most cambat-viable flow I've seen and I don't think I'd last very long, if at all against him." He growled, his eyes darkening slightly. From the depths, a few flickers of orangish-red were visible, like sparks were dancing in the backs of his eyes. "I've got an idea....You're trained in a form of Karate, I'm guessing? Did you ever get to weapon training? Or disarming?" he asked, canting his head curiously.

 

"I have... a plan? Admittedly it's very dumb."

"If it's dumb don't say it."

"Shhhhh- just let me talk!" Riley took a deep breath "We can all agree that first impression's of me are: Clumsy, energetic, naive, blah blah blah- yes? So... wouldn't it be a surprise if I went to an adult, completely different- angry, intimidating, stern- and offered to help them?"

"Riley I'm gonna' fucking punch you in the gut if you even try that."

"Riley would've tried!" Without thinking she found herself speaking of things that she had locked up "Not me- The real Riley! He would have done everything he could, even if the plan was dumb, to help out!"

Sydney found herself frozen- Riley, her friend before her, never spoke of the 'real' Riley. It was like a secret between them. A dark, painful secret that neither liked to admit "... But you're not that Riley-" she had meant to continue to say something along the lines of 'because your smarter, and I know you can do better' but was interrupted.

"And I never will be that Riley." Riley ever present smile slipped and she fiddled with something unseen, hidden in her pocket.

 

Did she really have to grab my shirt. This is a nice shirt and now it's not gonna fit this good ever again you ass. Malik did enjoy the act of being dragged, nor of being interrupted when he was trying to talk. Rude. After listening carefully to what Zein was saying, he decided that he liked most of what she was saying. "I like most of you're saying." he wrote and showed her before quickly flipping the notebook around for him to write again. "But if I can't run, I guess I'll win the tournament. Let's go get food."  He handed her the notebook before going to get a plate of food. At a food table he saw some kind of meat wrapped in bacon on a skewer and took several skewers. It had been a long time since he had had some good bacon. His father had never told him how to make it and every time Malik had tried he had never been able to get it just right. With two skewers in each hand, he began to munch down and make his way back to his shared room to retrieve the rest of his gear. Leaving his stuff away from his person may be a bad idea from now on because of the way events could play out suddenly, as had been experienced this morning, so now he would never leave the room without all of his gear ever again.

Malik shouldered his pack and walked back towards the armory, leaving empty skewers in his wake. Fuck those guys. They can clean up after me. Silent rebellion. Subtle rebellion. I'm annoying you! Ha! He hoped his little mess would be noticed by the adults and annoy them. The thought pleased him. Before going to the training room, he stopped by the Armory, and was happy, and a bit surprised, to not find Vanthus there to congratulate him on killing a kid that couldn't have done crap against him. Truly a thrilling conquest. There were a collection of knives in the room, and looked for a knife that was similar to his own. All the ones he tried didn't feel right in his hand, so he started looking for a different weapon. There was nothing there that he knew how to use as well as his own weapon and he didn't want to spend time on trying to learn to use a new weapon so he raised his hand into the air with his middle finger extended and walked out to head towards the training and waited for his sparring partner to arrive.