Location: The Dance
Gear: A hot ass dress
Skills: The insurmountable will to not lose her cool under any circumstances
Oh god oh fuck
âHeh⌠Nice.â Leah wasnât sure where sheâd hang up her fancy wizard crown⌠Maybe frame it on the wall with Sabineâs and Aprilâs. She wasnât used to winning fancy shit like this, so Leahâs âFancy Shit from High Schoolâ collection was effectively nonexistent. Three years in a row, and this was the first big thing she did here that wasnât a milestone for heroics. The first school dance she had ever been to, when she couldâve gone to the last two. The first Halloween party she had been to, when she never did Halloween before in her
life. Leah felt⌠like a kid. It sounded dumb, and silly, but kids were dumb and silly. And that was okay to most people, but Leah would say she never had the chance to be either of those things growing up. And while that was technically true, she grew up at AA, and not just in the desert back home.
She was always too scared to step out of the walls that she built. Too afraid of being hurt again to enjoy life. Leah was trying to find the courage to climb over the walls a lot more lately, and her girlfriends helped. They helped so much, when it came to being just dumb and silly kids every now and then. They needed all the time they could spend, since theyâd all have to fight one day. Hopefully, theyâd both be prepared for her approach to the contest by then. Leah knew her team definitely wouldnât be, by they wouldnât matter at that point. Leah never wanted to fight in the contest, she just did it for the sake of others. If she allowed herself to entertain the idea enough, Leah could imagine that sheâd rather spend the years others spend among the Avengers with April and Sabine.
Where else would she go? AA was where everything she ever made for herself was found. Without itâŚ
When everyone started to pay attention to other things, Leah figured the night wouldnât last much longer. And she had her eyes on that haunted house since they got here, out of curiosity. People had been coming out absolutely demoralized. And she could see Vicky standing around looking nervous for quite a while before hobbling across the floor for Madalyneâs help. Not a good sign if she was fraternizing with wizards.
âYou two noticed that people seemed to be coming out of there absolutely wrecked? Not really the reaction Iâs think of for a haunted house. Nimueâs running it, so⌠I think Iâm gonna go see whatâs in there, and kick the ass of whateverâs messing people up,â She said to her girls, with her usual confidence and badassery.
Leah planted a kiss on both of their foreheads,
âIâll make sure itâs safe, if you two go in after me.â She was being playful, but honestly, what sort of sadistic shit was Nimue hiding in there? She walked off the edge of the stage landing on both feet, and immediately made her way inside.
It seemed normal, walking inside the haunted house up until the very moment where everything went wrong. There wasn't a defined point where things were normal and when things started looking weird, but Leah found herself in darkness. Haunted houses were supposed to be dark, that much was true, but she couldn't even see past her own hands. It was just bright enough to see herself and a concrete floor, and yet everything was unfalteringly
black. Where was the entrance, again? Leah couldn't see it behind her, not even a distant glow indicating a point of reference for how far she had walked. Leah felt that she had walked into a straight line, despite this being a
maze. It was unnatural, and Leah should have seen this coming, entering a place that was ran by an otherworldly entity. But she kept walking regardless. All was quiet, up until the moment Leah heard something rumble.
A low, groaning noise like a distant volcano. Like a crumbling mountain. It caught her attention, and so Leah stopped.
"You..." A voice like an ocean.
Leah spun around, quick as a whip, and saw that she was not alone. Somehow, she could see them in this weird void of a world. A figure, standing head and shoulders taller than her, with stony skin that was flecked with bits of brown and bronze. They had more muscle in one arm than Leah did in her entire body, and Teddy was the only one she had ever met that fit could compete with her strength. The stranger was has some sort of armor on, minimal and made of leather and bits of metal. At least, that was what it seemed like, something between a sleeveless vest and riot gear. Strange markings stood out across their skin, wrapping around their arms like geometric snakes. They wore fur-lined boots that went up to their ankles, and somehow completely silenced their movements. They looked like someone from another world entirely, and yet Leah could see a resemblance there. They had hair in a style similar to her own, untouched and long enough to touch the floor. Only their hair was... Jagged. Leah's hair fell down in thick curls, where the stranger's bristled outwards like thorns.
A scowl was etched across their face, marred with weathering from conflict Leah couldn't begin to understand. Two golden eyes looked through Leah like a pane of glass. They spoke, and the world spoke with them.
"You still don't know, do you?""What... Who the hell are you? I'm just lost. I'm trying to-"The stranger shot forward, faster than Leah was prepared for. In the blink of an eye, they were in arm's reach, and Leah felt the wind forced out of her lungs as a fist was planted clean between her ribs. Leah was flung backwards, hurtling into the dirt that she didn't realize was there. White-hot exploded outwards across her chest, something felt like it had been cracked.
In a coughing fit, Leah forced herself upright, looking towards the stranger who was walking towards her. That rumbling noise was all around them, and it only got louder as the distance closed. Leah brought her hand down to the ground, hoping to find something she could use. It felt like concrete, but this was strange. Could she... Leah swung her hand upwards towards her attacker, and sure enough, a spike of concrete shot outwards at an angle, pointed right at them. It was wider than her forearm, and yet it did absolutely nothing. The stranger
grabbed the spike with one hand, and punched it with the other. It grew cracks across every square inch of its surface, and crumbled to dust just as soon as it was unleashed.
The sound of flesh hitting stone rang out, and reverberated through the floor so intensely that Leah couldn't help but worry she'd fall again.
"You aren't this weak. You never were. Why you embrace this, then?""I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, I'm just trying to find the exit and get out of this damn place.""And run home, to people who don't trust you?"Leah didn't have a fucking clue what this person was on about, so she darted forward and swung her meanest haymaker at their jaw. It landed, and the stranger's head was thrown to the side, but they were still standing. Leah got a frontal kick to the stomach for her troubles, and was once again flung backwards. Only this time the stranger didn't let her get up. When Leah tumbled to the floor once again, she heard a sound like a rockslide as her attacker charged. Leah flung herself left, and raised a platform of stone to springboard off of. She left the round just in time for the stranger to swat her out of the air. A hand found itself around her throat, while Leah dangled mid-air.
She could feel her throat closing, in a chokehold.
Through quick thinking, Leah sent her power into the floor and shot up a thin pillar aimed at the stranger's arm, to break the stranglehold. But it shattered when it made contact. The entire thing, down to the floor, burst into rubble. She must have pissed them off, because Leah got a punch to the face that left her reeling in a way she hadn't felt in a long,
long time. Something broke, and a warm feeling oozed out across her face. And then, a second punch came, threatening to leave Leah unconscious from the sheet vertigo she felt. The need to breathe was all that kept her away, and that need was growing more difficult to fulfill by the second.
Leah was raised by a man more than twice her size. She was born into fights against people who outmatched her physically. It shouldn't have been this difficult to fight someone who fought like
him. But this stranger was more dangerous. That pillar trick broke limbs in other situations, but it barely even phased her opponent now. Her lungs were starting to scream. The stranger's face seemed to contort with disdain. They said something, but Leah's thoughts were too blurred, her head too concussed, for her to hear it. Everything sounded like it was underwater. A sudden flash of sharp pain in her side reminded her of where she was. Her ribs had been broken for sure.
Leah swung her upper body upwards, and locked her knees around their forearm. It was an old trick she used on her old man, back when she was small enough to fit inside a suitcase, to dislocate joints. The size different between her and this maniac was enough that it could work in theory. Her left foot went flat against the stranger's shoulder, and her right foot hooked around their elbow. She twisted, and felt air enter her lungs again, as she fell to the ground. Her injured ribs wailed in protest, and everything started spinning again, but Leah scuttled backwards. The stranger growled as their forearm was now inoperable. Leah reached her feet and slipped into a classic boxing stance, swaying like a tall tree on a spring evening. Her head felt like it was being split open by a rusty axe. But she was
not giving up without a fight.
The stranger, clearly not threatened by Leah's display of technique,
laughed. They brought their dislocated arm up, and popped it back into place with a sickening
slap. Leah, however, demonstrated why an opponent should never be underestimated. Despite two major injures, and a possible concussion, she blitzed the stranger, dropping her left foot, fancy 2-inch heel and all, straight into their abdomen. They were forced back, and managed to make them stumble back. Leah kept up the pressure, and swung an uppercut that caught them off guard.
Left jab to the throat, full-body elbow to the shoulder to compromise balance. They couldn't recover as quickly as their smaller opponent, and stumbled into a position where they had to put all their weight on their left foot. Leah knocked them off of it with a roundhouse kick, aimed high enough that her shoe went clean into one of the stranger's eyes.
They didn't go down without a fight, though. Leah stayed on them, driving a kick into their jaw as they tried to stand. They rolled over onto their face, and Leah swung the heaviest left hook she ever swung in her life, down at the back of their head. This, however, was a mistake.
Blood sprayed across her fingers, and the stranger's hair. An angry yelp of pain escaped Leah's throat as she realized the skin on her knuckles, hand and wrist had just been shredded. Blood dripped onto the floor, smearing across her dress. During that lapse in focus, the stranger drove an elbow into Leah's stomach. She felt weightless for a moment, and then crashed as she realized that she had left the ground.
She felt something spasm, like she was been electrocuted. Everything went numb for a moment. Her lungs weren't taking in air, she tried to breathe but nothing happened for precious seconds. Seconds, which felt like minutes in the heat of combat.
"Look at you. This is what waits for you, if you don't let them go." The stranger walked over to Leah, who was lying in a puddle of blood that slowly grew around her. The ground was slick, and Leah naively thought she cold win this.
Everything rumbled again.
"Everyone you've ever known comes and goes, but you stay. You understand that, don't you?" They planted a foot against Leah's broken ribs, and the weight threatened to suffocate her. Foolishly, Leah grabbed their ankle and tried to snap it, but they only knelt down until all she could see was their hate-filled eyes.
"Even now, you resist everything. You're so strong, and yet so, so weak. One day, you will be all that is left standing, and this is how you will feel."Leah ignored their nonsense, and tried to slug them with her bloodied fist. But they grabbed it, and her hand released a crunching noise. And then another, and another still. Leah's voice strained against her broken chest and the weight placed upon her, and her hand fell limp.
As if it were a totally normal response to having one's hand crushed, Leah slammed her forehead against theirs. That got a reaction out of the stranger, in the form of them recoiling, and Leah's skin splitting open between her eyes and broken nose. But the stranger once again laughed.
"...You have so much fire inside you, and you cling to others to keep warm. But people come and go like candles in the wind-"They swung a right hook at Leah's temple, softer than before. They were mocking her.
"And the wind does not move the mountain. Isn't that what you always tell yourself, Mayra?"Her blood became ice in her veins. Seconds stretched on, and on, until her moment of panic became one of fury.
"Who... the hell are you?" She hissed.
The stranger only smiled.
"You'll figure that out yourself, one day..." They raised a hand, and slowly curled it into a fist. The strange shapes covering their arms began to glow a warm, golden color.
"When you're ready."And it all went black.
Leah's vision became clear again, on the outside of whatever ungodly labyrinth she had stepped into. Looking around with far too much adrenaline in her system, Leah's fist balled and she was immediately ready to continue fighting. It wasn't until she heard the corny music that she noticed that the stranger was gone. She was back at the dance, and it definitely wasn't a dream. Her dress, hand, and face were still smeared with blood, which seemed to be drying out. And of course, the bones in her left hand were
fucked now. Leah could feel the pain in it all, but she endured pain enough to tolerate it. Leah looked around, and felt her urge to beat someone out of existence recede.
Enough time had passed since she tried to kill her father that she
almost forgot what it was like to feel this small. This weak, and powerless against someone else.
"...Fuck."
