Chapter 31: 30 – Gangrene

"The fans love bloodshed, watching Ascension Teams tear each other apart in the arena, but, and let me tell you, they crave the team drama outside the arena just as much. With enough cameras, we don't miss a single, succulent moment."

- The Unabridged Interview of Veldraken Juinper, ARCborn

 

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Mori shut the locker door, drying her hair with a mint scented towel, unable to untangle the knot in her gut. She placed the towel on the polished wood bench, flexed her icy-blue veined fingers, recalling the feeling of breaking apart Viri Drasta’s face. She’d lost her cool in the match, and it had cost them.

Her cycling wasn’t where it needed to be, and she was still three parameters short of Acolyte. She couldn’t afford to make mistakes where they could be avoided, to give potential Ascension team members even more reasons to avoid her.

She zipped up her fresh nanosuit, feeling the fibers sync with her nanites. An urge to skip out on watching the rest of the mock battles and work on her cycling itched at her, but she promised Klaire and Tel she’d watch, and besides, Gitta and Loig’s team was on the docket today—top contenders for no. 1 in the First Year Showcase.

Wet feet smacked on the locker room tiles behind her. Mori turned. Nevara’s face was already an inch away from hers. The skinny, fresh out the showers Striker thrust a purple veined arm past Mori's shoulder and forced her up against the locker. Her tired eyes went wide and mad, water dripping off her damp, black and white striped hair. “What is your problem, Gangrene?”

The scent of lavender body wash filled Mori’s nose, Nevara’s breath prickling her skin. Her body flushed with uncomfortable heat being this close to the nude Striker. “I could ask you the same thing.”

Nevara booped her on the nose with her pointer finger, and Mori had half a mind to bite it off.

“My problem is you. Seemingly forever and always as you continuously try to tank my career before it even lifts off.”

“I know I messed up. I should have left Viri behind for Hermel as soon as I had the chance.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Nevara hissed.

Mori pushed her off, and Nevara let the force take her back a few steps, water still running in rivulets down her purple veined skin. Mori’s throat constricted with anger. “Why? Because I’m an Initiate? Because I only have an Enhancement? Are you going to berate me about it forever? I can’t go back and take more treasure pills, I can’t change who my father was.”

Even if it was half lies, it all rang true.

Nevara sucked her lower lip, nodded. “It’s true. I do blame you, even though I know it’s not completely your fault. I know how the Ascension works. I’m not oblivious.” She traced a circle in the air around Mori’s face with her finger “But this, I wager, is the problem. You hate me. Favored in general.”

Mori opened her mouth, closed it. “I don’t—”

Nevara took a step forward. “Viri, Loig, Hermel, Mid Rimmers and inwards. It’s why you purposely humiliated your opponents in the entry exams, why you wasted over a minute of precious fight time beating Drasta’s face into a bloody bone meal instead of helping us win. Or am I off the mark here?”

Mori gritted her teeth, furled and unfurled her fingers.

An unFavored Lyko servant slipped in behind them, picking up Mori’s towel and dirty nanosuit, appearing to give the two of them no consideration. They around turned the corner of the burnt orange and black lockers.

“Didn’t think so,” Nevara said. “And don’t think for a minute I haven’t noticed you sneaking out at night, likely beating your head against the wall down on the training level. You’re perpetually exhausted—trust me, I know from experience—you don’t eat—we all notice. You’re a walking shipwreck waiting to happen—ARC, it’s already happening—and I’ll be damned if I let it continue.”

Mori shook her head, anger hot and thrumming in her veins. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Nevara splayed her hands. “What? Did an Enforcer kill your daddy for something before Prime lifted you off whatever forsaken rock she left you on?”

Mori grabbed Nevara by the throat, fingers slicking with moisture as she forced her back against the opposite lockers with a clunk. Nevara grinned. “Hit the target dead center, did I?”

“Speak about my father again, my home, and I will find a way to sever your tongue permanently.”

“You think you're the only one who’s been slighted, Gangrene? Gets intimate with anger?” Nevara spat. “That you reserve the right just because you're from the Edge?”

“Yes,” Mori’s head swam with rage, her vision tunneling. “I do. You know nothing.”

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“I know you continually spit in the face of your own potential,” Nevara wheezed as Mori’s grip tightened, her tendons burning with the effort. “That you have a stronger foundation than anyone at this Aether damned school.”

Mori furrowed a brow.

“That’s right,” Nevara wheezed. “Initiates holding their own against Acolytes? You think that’s normal? By all reasoning, you should have dropped after that hammer blow from Hermel, yet continued fighting. When you get to Acolyte, you’ll be a monster.”

Mori furrowed a brow, confused. Was she trying to start a fight, or encourage her?

“Yet you deprive yourself of food, sleep, let your rage control you, instead of you, it. It’s not sustainable. Trust me, I know. You can’t change the past, but you can change the future. Everyone is watching. Always. Whether you like it or not, their perception matters.”

Mori’s grip loosened. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Then pull your shit together,” Nevara growled. “You’re not the only one who wants to thrash half the Favored in this school.”

It was more than just half.

Mori’s palms slid down to Nevara’s slender shoulders, and she lowered her head. Nevara wasn’t the first person to tell her if she kept going at this pace, she would break, but what other option was there? Her teammates didn’t know she couldn’t advance like everyone else. Her path to Acolyte was built on hopes and dreams that fixing her cycling would get her there in time for the First Year Showcase. Slowing down felt like dying.

Nevara clicked her tongue. “Arguing is a lot less fun if you get all emotional.”

Mori whipped her head up. “I’m not getting emotional.”

Nevara smirked. “Sure you aren’t, Gangrene.” She looked away, cleared her throat. “I’ll help.”

Mori blinked. “What?”

“I’ll help you in your extracurricular training, but we start earlier, and you will start going to the dining hall to eat regular meals and get a half decent night's rest. I’ll have Klaire knock you out cold if I have to.”

Mori shook her head. Nevara couldn’t help her advance, but… Mori remembered the way she redirected her anima in her channels during her fights, pulling from her mental repository of cycling stances. People could move to clearer directions than bots. Maybe she could help.

“Why?”

“Because whether I like it or not—and I don’t—we are on the same team, idiot. Also, if you lose your cool in another fight like that again, I will find a way to turn off your nanite refiners and kill you.”

Mori chuckled, shaking her head. She didn’t know how to feel about Nevara as an Inner Rimmer, didn’t know what Nevara meant when she said she was slighted. Mori knew only one thing for sure. The Striker knew how to push all of her buttons. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

The locker room door opened. Viri walked in, her ash brown hair in disarray and face damp with sweat. She froze as she took in Mori leaning over a naked Nevara up against the lockers. Mori’s cheeks flushed, and so did Viri’s.

“It’s exactly what it looks like,” Nevara said.

Mori leapt back, her hands held up, trying to prove innocence. Viri turned her gaze away from them, her expression one of defeat as she disappeared into the back of the locker room.

Mori lowered her hands. Viri’s team had won, but Mori thought she knew how she felt, how dragging the rest of your team down ate away at you. Mori shook her head. Who cared if a Drasta was all torn up? It’s how it should be.

She turned to Nevara. “Why the Aether did you have to say that? Make it look like we were…” Mori’s ears heated.

Nevara stretched her anima burned limbs, opened her locker, not bothering to dry off further before slipping on a fresh burnt orange nanosuit. She smirked. “Perception.”

“I fail to see how this helps either of us.”

Nevara shut the locker door. “Relax, Gangrene. Drasta doesn’t have a leg to stand on in terms of gossip. I just get off on seeing you all bent out of shape.” She smirked, brushed past her toward the locker room door.

Mori sighed. Why’d she have to say it like that?

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