Zoe couldn't really absorb everything she'd just seen. One second they'd been in the middle of a fight, and the next it was all over. A minute hovering in the sphere had at least given her time to calm down slightly but there was just so much to take in, not least the sheer difference in power that had just been shown by the crystal-making student. She guessed he had to be one of the academy's stronger mages though, because there was no way the kind of power he'd just used was average around here. The senior students were yelling about something, but it went over her head. Whoever they were talking to hadn't been with her group so it wasn't her problem, just background noise not worth paying attention to.
She looked kind of surprised at Angel's concern, startling slightly at the hand on her shoulder. Not really sure how to respond to it she just nodded in thanks. Despite her efforts to hold it together, the shock was visibly starting to set in, leaving her struggling to maintain her balance. The whole experience had been horrifying and she knew it wouldn't be the last time either, but at least no-one else had died this fight. Probably thanks to the intervention - a thought which reminded her of something. She took a deep breath, clenching her fists to stop her hands from shaking before she spoke, looking around at her teammates.
"What happened out there?"Pausing for a second as her voice shook, she tried to regain her composure. As much as it would make her feel better, pointless yelling wouldn't achieve anything. She could be as angry as she wanted, but she needed to get through to them if she wanted to make any kind of difference. When she spoke again her voice was more measured, filled with barely-controlled rage.
"You three. Aaron, Allison, Savannah. If it wasn't for me, Angel and Chris bailing you out, you three wouldn't be alive right now. You were dead weight out there, and we're lucky we didn't get dragged down with you. There were seven people in this team, but only three of us did anything worth a damn. One of us didn't even get a chance to fight. I had to spend half my time cleaning up after your mistakes and trying to keep you people alive. Yeah, maybe some of us are stronger than others, but that doesn't mean we should have to babysit you."
"You're lucky there's only one corpse from our team out there, and hell, maybe all of us could've come back from that alive! You had plenty of time to at least try and save Alexis - and don't even bother pretending you didn't - and instead you just sat back where it was safe and let other people fight your battles for you. Far as I'm concerned, her blood's on your hands, all because you were too pathetic to even try anything to save her that involved risking your own necks."Raising her head to look at them, there was a fire in her eyes that made it clear just how furious she was. Even before her own experience went as badly as it did, she'd been annoyed, but everything else about the battle had just sent her emotions over the edge. She was completely past any idea of consideration or pulling punches, and as far as she cared they needed some kind of wakeup call.
"So could one of you kindly explain to me what the fuck you think you were doing?"--------------------------------------------------------------
It was....finally over. In what seemed to be the blink of an eye, a new arrival on the battlefield seemed to finish off the remaining enemies and gather everyone from the four groups together and taking them to safety at that. The sixteen year old did not fully know how to respond to things as they passed by so quickly, except that he was able to stop his summoning and actually rest for a moment sitting on the ground, all as he watched the new arrival and Pink Team leader begin to make arrangements for healing the wounded and such. It had been a hell of a messy and terrible fight, if the state everyone from the different teams seemed to be in told anything about the matter. However, the pain that seemed to scream from his broken ribs, the leftover tinges of nausea, and the lingering daze of adrenaline that had overtaken his body since he had originally been rolled over by a meatball seemed to at least keep his mind off of the horrors they all had just witnessed and gone through for the moment being.
Yet really before he could try to process anything further, one member of the Green Team barked at himself, Allison, and Savannah after addressing the whole team. It was the red-haired girl who had saved him earlier from the spaghetti tendril, who also was one of the "black X" individuals in the group, and in what he heard from her she seemed to be...blaming the three of them for Alexis' death?! Aaron's facial expression, already tinged with the physical pain, drew itself into a look of visible frustration as he grit his teeth and shakily stood up from his sitting position in order to stand and face the angry redhead. Despite making some attempt to calm himself down before speaking, it was hard to do so when he and two other members of the group were being accused as they were.
"Allison...at least tried to help save myself and tried to save Alexis, and Savannah at least tried to save me and also knocked down one of the spaghetti monsters in the process," Aaron hissed out as he attempted to defend his other accused teammates, his tone of voice filled with a mix of pain and his frustrations at both the situation and Zoe coming out as he continued to speak,
"If you accuse anyone of not pulling their part in the fight, then accuse just me, not either of them. Hell, i even ran back because i have three broken ribs from that noodle and have a five minute summoning time to be able to use my power."Coughing once after speaking, Aaron's face and body twinged in a slight spasm of very visible pain, forcing him to stop for a moment and take a couple of short breaths before he could continue once more. It also gave him a chance to calm down himself, and his tone of voice, somewhat as well.
Since Aaron had started speaking, Zoe had been trying to judge whether he was actually serious. Once she decided he was, his little speech only managed to leave her more annoyed, and frankly she couldn't believe what he was trying to say. Part of her found it so ridiculous it was almost funny, but that didn't mean she was about to let him keep going with it. As soon as he stopped to cough, she cut him off, laughing bitterly. No wonder they'd gotten into such a mess if this was how they reacted to being told the truth.
"You're kidding, right? If you actually think you can take responsibility for everyone, then you're an arrogant little prick. Newsflash, you're not that important. Just because you fucked up, doesn't mean that they didn't, so spare me your martyr complex bullshit. I'm more than happy to blame all three of you." She looked around, gesturing towards the other two with a slow,mocking shake of the head. At this point, part of her was trying to get a rise out of them. Sure, it was petty, but she figured they more than deserved everything she was dishing out.
"Besides, their 'help' didn't do much, did it? In case you're forgetting, I was the one that got you out of there. By the time Savannah did anything to help, I didn't need or want any backup. All she did was get in my way when she could've been helping someone else, and Allison? The only thing Allison even came close to killing was herself.""Martyr complex bullshit? Arrogant prick? I'm just saying the two of them at least tried to do something out there unlike myself. Hell, keep in mind, that none of us have likely ever been in a damn fight like this before if i had to hazard a guess," the sixteen year old said in the same manner as before, interjecting as soon as Zoe had finished, shooting an angry glare at the other girl while doing his best to maintain his cool otherwise,
""Still keep in mind those were freaky-ass monsters we were thrown against out there, though, and i'd bet even your almost-eaten whiny ass, Zoe, wasn't prepared for that shit any more than the rest of us. So calm the fuck down and think about your own fuck up's as well." "
With that, the injured boy carefully sat down once more, shutting his trap for good this time. It was hard to remember that the people with black X's were naturally in a bad mood, but even so it was hard not to get angry himself when he was being talked down on like a piece of crap. Yeah, he could have shut up quicker ealier and likely contributed more.
Was Zoe's reasoning right to say that three people's fuck up's as compared to everyone's fuck up's were enough cause to give the three of them full blame for everything? Hell no, at least in his book. Even if his words had only made things worse as a whole, he was not going to say more than he had. It just would not be worth it at this point, and he was not going to indulge in it any more.
With his final statement, the guy had gone past the limit of what Zoe could deal with right now. It would have been enough on its own, but then he had the nerve to go and sit down like she wasn't worth listening to. What gave him the right to tell her to be calm about this? What, did he expect her to be nice to them after everything that had happened out there? Not a chance. Hell, she'd been trying to stay calm this whole time, but apparently that wasn't going to get her anywhere. Taking a couple of steps forward, she lunged down without warning and grabbed Aaron's collar, yanking him up roughly to meet her gaze.
"You know what, I was being calm. Hell, I think I've been more than fair with you but if that's how it's gonna be, how about I show you what happens when I really lose my cool. See how you like having your face used to paint the side of those trucks over there." She was practically hissing at the guy, and obviously on the verge of doing some serious damage.
As he was yanked up from the ground by Zoe, Aaron's broken ribs were jolted as well, causing the boy to flinch in pain as he was lifted to meet Zoe's fierce gaze. Even so, the boy's eyes did not back down, shooting Zoe a cool gaze as best as possible even as he grit his teeth tightly together to try to cope with the harsh pain shooting through his chest around where his ribs were. Considering what the girl had done to one of the spaghetti monsters earlier, though, the threat to "use his face to paint the side of a truck" was not exactly one he took lightly. Yet at the same time, he could do nothing to stop her at the moment. Zoe had already stimulated his most painful injury, and he would very likely not be able to summon anything if the angry Aberration actually did go through with her threat.
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Angélique had listened to Zoe accusing her team’s less capable members with a frown. While a part of what the redhead said was true, her words were tactless given the situation they just went through. In the back of her mind, whispers kept speaking ill of both her and her teammates. Watching the pitiful Aaron struggling onto his feet,
"Weakling, pathetic, loser, deadweight" came into her mind. While listeneing to Zoe however, these words changed to
"Egocentric, barbaric, bitch".
Seeing her teammates getting at each other’ throats made Angel realize that this speech was taken too far and it was time for her to step into this quarrel. She may not be the leader of this group, but someone had to stop this escalating non-sense.
"Coward, useless, apathetic"“ENOUGH!” her voice boomed unnaturally, resonating loudly in the area to silence the dispute betweeen Zoe and Aaron, and the taunting whispers hammering Angélique's mind. As a result, a series of dry and shallow coughs hit the sonic-emitting Aberration.
As soon Zoe walked up to Aaron and seized him by the collar, Angel followed her trail and stepped in-between the red-haired Aberration and Clockwork. She had put up her hands onto each person’s chest and lightly put some pressure, not enough to push each other apart, but as a sign for the two to back off.
“Look, Zoe, I understand how you feel. I had similar thoughts about them back when we were fighting these monsters…” the black-haired young woman said with an almost choked voice before letting out a few more coughs of exhaustion from her throat.
“But you’ve got to understand… we’re not all made the same. Be it fear, panic, distress, despair, unwillingness or whatever, nobody can manage their emotions the same way you and I do. Hell, even I’m surprised I haven’t broke down in tears and desperation after that monstrous meatball was about to eat me. If it wasn’t for Christopher, I’d…” Angélique added but choked mid-sentence after reminding that horrible life-threatening experience.
“We can’t all fight these creatures with the same efficiency. We need more experience, training, power. It’s up to people like you to protect them until they are able to make a difference. If anything, we should blame ourselves for not being able to regroup all together and unite our strengths to cover our weaknesses. I tried to, but I failed in being thorough, too absorbed by my own survival. I’m… sorry…” By now, the X-marked singer’s voice was faint, growing weaker by the sentence.
“But for now… we should all be glad that…” Her reasoning speech interrupted itself by another coughing fit, sounding even worse than ever.
This time, Angel wasn’t able to continue. Her throat no longer felt like it was on fire, but rather she felt like she had swallowed a handful or needles, and they got stuck in her throat. Her shallow coughs didn’t help on her vocal cords either, and despite trying to clear her throat, no sound came through.
Realizing she couldn’t speak anymore, Angel simply stepped back from the two, trusting Zoe to have understood the reasoning she was trying to convey to her and the others. She turned to everyone in her group, thumping a closed fist to her chest and bowing her head slightly as a mean for respect, trust, gratitude? She raised her other hand and extended her index and middle-finger upwards, forming a V with her hand, as a symbol of victory or peace. Shortly after, she pointed at the corpse of their deceased comrade, Alexis, before turning back to the group and joining her hands together like a prayer.
When she finished, everyone could clearly see a trail of tears flowing down her cheeks from underneath her shades. She tried to look strong to inspire and bring sense to her teammates, but there were some emotions she couldn’t hold much longer.
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Zoe's initial reaction to being pushed back was confusion. She'd just been ready to get things started, and now she was getting shut down? The quicker she started, the quicker she'd be able to finish up, right? If it wasn't for the interruption, she'd already be halfway through--
Oh. Shock flashed across her face for a brief second, and she loosened her grip on the boy's collar.
This wasn't what she'd been trying to do. Maybe she'd intended it as an empty threat to scare him into listening, but there was no doubt about the reality of the situation. She'd lost control.
I would have killed him. Would have enjoyed it as well - which just hammered home the fact that she needed to stay away from them.
Her expression still showed the same amount of frustration, but from how tempted she still was to attack the boy she realised she'd be better off not continuing the argument. Instead, she just avoided looking at the two people stood next to her as she listened to Angel's speech. On some level, she at least agreed with what the other Aberration was saying, which helped when it came to keeping her mouth shut.
In the nick of time, it seemed that the "screaming angel" of the Green Team stepped in stop things, yelling and seemed to gently push the two of them as if wanting them to move apart. Shakily standing, his right hand gripping his side until his knuckles turned white, Aaron listened to the currently more level-headed member of the group as she tried to seemingly talk them down and explain things. As he listened, the boy found himself calming down a bit more as well, distracted from his other thoughts of furstration and his possible demise at the hands of a teammate. In the end, though, the black-haired Abberation herself was finally unable to speak, the strain of the battle on her vocal chords seeming to Aaron to have finally kicked in to render her temporarily mute.
As the trail of tears began to flow down the girl's face after what seemed to be her attempt to convery a message to them, the sixteen year old's features softened a bit as he thought about things for a moment. To him, it seemed Angel was trying to tell them to be glad they had won, to respect the dead, and perhaps that she trusted them all to some extent. At least, that was the thought on his part. Really, it seemed the other girl was trying to hold her own feelings back from how she appeared now, something that they all were perhaps struggling with when it came down to it. Even he was trying to hold back when talking to Zoe, albeit not to the best effect as he could admit to himself if nothing else. .
Unable to take seeing her in such a state, even as the reality of things and the guilt of spurring Zoe on as he had begun to sink in for him, Aaron shakily moved over to Angel. His legs quivered with each step, sweat ran down his brow, and the renewed pain from Zoe snatching him up so suddenly did not help the matter. In the process he ignored Zoe and the others, and upon making it over to the raven haired angel he did his best to look her in the eyes (albeit she had her shades on). After this he raised his arms up, hesitating for a brief second before thenputting his hands on Angel's shoulders and did his best to give the girl the warmest and most genuine smile he could manage. Whilst an initially awkaward expression that was being given by a boy with three broken ribs, it was as honest and genuine a smile as Aaron could manage to give to her at this point in time with all things being considered.
He was no psychologist, hell he couldn't call himself a "saint" by any means. But he saw someone who needed to cry, and after everything they had been through he felt he at least owed that much to the girl who had helped save their butts back on the battlefield.
"Can...cry.....if...you need...to," Aaron managed to say with a hoarse, somewhat hissing, and pained sound in his voice, the pain in his chest gnawing at him with each word. Albeit, he was doing his best to be warm in his tone as well before he finished speaking. Yet it seemed as of now he was finally unable to bear the pain that has arisen in his chest when he started speaking to Angel, and instead let the smile do the rest of the speaking for him.
Had Angélique been able to speak, her pride would've told him that she'd see him cry before she does. But with no words coming out from her mouth, she simply stood there, accepting Aaron's warm smile and friendly pat on her shoulder. How much would she like to allow herself to wrap her arms around the young man in a warm embrace and weep her sorrow on his shoulder, but she couldn't, knowing she had to stay strong, and that Aaron had mentionned about his ribs being injured. Instead, she wiped the tears from her cheeks and returned the brown-haired boy's smile with her own, although faint and still hinting her depressed state of mind.
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Allison Revel was lying on the ground, tired, delirious, and bleeding, but at least she wasn't dead. In her state of half-consciousness, she heard loud bickering from the rest of the group, but stayed out of it, partially because she wasn't sure if she could even respond. Her body felt like lead, and her side felt like fire. How much blood had she lost? She wanted to call to the others, to try and get someone to help her deal with the wound, but her jaw was tight, her teeth clamped together. So, Allison just layed there. Eventually, Allison was able to let out a weak grunt, her vocal chords finally deciding to make an effort to alert the others that the girl lying on the ground bleeding was indeed in need of assistance.
Savannah had been so wrapped up in keeping her cool, she had hardly noticed Allison and her predicament. When the older girl had grunted in obvious pain, Savannah had whipped her head around, blonde curls shaken from their place on her back. The petite teenager ran to Allison's side, and kneeled down next to her, distress showing in her face. The girl that was bleeding in front of her had been kind to her, Savannah might as well repay the favor.
Hearing over groans of pain, the mature Canadian girl looked over her shoulder to see from who those painful moans came from. Shocked was she when she realized those groans were coming from a very injured Allison. Already, blood was starting to pool beneath her body. Dropping everything else in mind, she excused herself from the rest of the team with a slight bow of her head towards Aaron to run towards Allison .
Savannah's rmind was racing, until it jumped to one useful day in gym, where they had learned basic first aid. She hadn't learned how to help someone who was
impaled , but she had learned how to patch up wounds. Bandages. Her mind was racing, and her first thought was to stop the wound using cloth. Looking around her, she realized that there were no bandages on site.
Blast it all. She was going to have to use some cloth. Specifically the stuff from her clothes. She wasn't particularly looking forward to ripping off her clothes and showing the bare, scarred skin beneath it, but what was a girl to do?
She took the part of the legging just above the thigh and ripped it off with her teeth, still having a hand on Allison's wound. She tore it into one strip and wrapped it around Allison's side, tying it tightly around the side that wasn't impaled. Remembering the shard, she frowned and pushed the strip of her pants through the shard, not taking it out. It would be a horrible idea to take it out, as she had learned in gym. She didn't want to be repsonsible for anyone's death with her bad ideas.
"Hold on Allison." Savannah whispered comfortingly.
Already, Savannah was already there to care for Allison. Angélique was relieved to see that the petite young blonde girl seemed well-versed into first aid techniques. While she would like to stay and help her friend, Angel knew two of them standing there would do her no good. Bandaging the wound with a makeshift cloth would not be of help for long, and so she required immediate medical attention before losing any more blood than necessary.
Although the raven-haired singer was mute, she had experience in this kind of situation. It wasn’t the first time she actually lost her voice. Her younger years of training and taking singing classes would often make her lose her voice, laryngitis and such. Plus, only she knew what she was really thinking, and feared that asking for Savannah to fetch help with sign language would only confuse her.
Getting back up on her feet, Angel tapped Savannah on her shoulder. She motioned her hand in such a way that she was pointing the petite teenager, then Allison and motioned with both her hands against her side to keep pressure on the wound without removing the shard. Afterwards, she pointed back at herself, then pointed towards the group of people that had gathered together a seemingly crystalline coffin and an unconscious boy. With a reassuring nod, Angel took off running in the direction where the members of Pink Team had gathered. While running, she gestured to the group with large waves of her arms to get their attention.
Savannah nodded at Angel's mute response, putting both hands against Allison's bleeding side in an attempt to halt the bleeding. Vaguely, she noticed that the part of her pants that hadn't been ripped off was now covered in sticky blood. Not even mentioning her hands which were also soaked in Allison's blood. Seeing Angel go for help, she nodded gravely. She couldn't actually give a thumbs up at this moment, since she was putting pressure onto Allison's side in an attempt to stop the bleeding. They'd already lost two people in this battle. Savannah couldn't let them lose yet another.
Once she had approached the group, Angélique let out a faint raspy sigh to catch her breath.With frantic motions of her hands, she pointed towards her team, sweeping her open palm against her side to indicate a large cut on someone’s side. She did not know much how to motion about getting help and bleeding, so she just took a guess and her lips moved as if she was speaking the word help, as well as the universal sign for help in mute language – an open palm holding a closed fist with a thumb sticking up.
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Zoe had walked away from the group after the speech ended, seemingly deciding that this wasn't worth the trouble anymore. Once she'd gone far enough to be feel she was keeping her distance, she watched her teammates' actions with an odd mixture of anger and wistfulness. They, at least on some level, seemingly wanted to look out for each other - although she doubted she was included in that. Luckily, getting them to like her wasn't something she'd cared about in the first place.
She'd always tried protecting weaker people. Being the strong one, the tough one, taking the hits where other people couldn't. Making sure to cover their backs, even if they wouldn't do the same for her. Whatever she had to do to keep the people on her side safe. She wasn't about to stop looking out for anyone - if anything, it was the one thing she didn't think she had a problem with - but that didn't mean they could rely on someone always being there to fix their mistakes.
The fact was, her role was to keep them alive, and that was what she planned to do. Angel was right. They weren't all made the same, and that was why Zoe had needed to speak up. Because she was strong. Strong enough to say what needed to be said. Maybe it would leave them despising her, but she was strong enough to deal with that, too. It was fine if they hated her guts, as long as they were still alive to do it. This wasn't a place for second chances and she'd be as harsh as she needed to be to make that sink in.
If that makes me the bad guy, then so be it.
