A jab to the quad lumborum puts distance between Carolina and her opponent. Sends pain star-bursting from lower spine to neck, taking root in teeth which clench habitually. She jumps into a back handspring and ignores the way her vertebrae protest.
Rarely does Agent Carolina take the first hit during a spar.
This is starting off just great.
Come on. Don't let a little spinal tap throw you off your game, C.
He's right.
She lands on splayed hands and swings herself to standing, steeling her resolve and kicking up dirt in her quick burst forward. Challenge distance with close-quarters combat. She meets Fever with an attempted right-hook, then closed-fisted jab to the side.
It's the followup that catches her, a burst of blunt pain that will definitely leave a bruise before an hour's passed, and Fever feels the radiating ache as she leaps back - like Carolina thought, she is fast. Good punch, even if Fever has no intention of being her new sandbag. Blocking isn't going to be possible today, not unless she wants to play very risky, so it'll have to be evasion.
And she smiles, eyes focused, because she can already tell this spar will be worth it. Doesn't hurt that her opponent's got some anger - if there's any way to draw it out of her, it might yet sharpen the blade. Raging against shadows.
Distance means the other will be forced to give chase, and pulled back like she is, there's room to swing - it'll be at those impressive legs, trying to force her off-balance for a follow up.
Carolina breathes hard to knock the hair out of her face. Dissatisfied, even with the blow she did manage to Fever's chest. Not hard enough. Should have knocked her several feet back. You can do better. Should do better. But she's quick. Damn quick, and won't allow herself to be so easily caught.
Her staff forces distance between them, pitting Carolina at the ultimate disadvan—
Stop. Making. Excuses.
If she wants to be chased. Chase her.
She dives forward. A 'whizz' as intricately carved wood splices through the air, aimed to knock her shins out from under her. Gathering her weight into her toes, Carolina springs to avoid impact. Feels a rush of air just under her feet. Too close. A second sooner and she would have crashed into the dirt.
Try, try again.
You can do this.
You can do this!
She can do this.
Carolina sticks the landing. Feels good about it. About the ground, solid beneath her feet, and the way her heel kicks up grass and dust in her rush forward, ready, ready, ready to attack—
Another whistle of wood splicing the air.
Wait—
Too fast—
Crack!—
Wood to shin. Center of balance suddenly not-so-centered.
Good, she still remembers her reflexes - she'd kick her own ass if she didn't remember them after playing with swords like she has. Balance off, and it means a follow up. Pivot, and then a jab aimed at Carolina's side, returning the earlier punch given.
It's fun. This is fun, in a way that shattering those glass statues couldn't be, in a way that fighting a dummy or shadowboxing can't be. It's adapting to someone, figuring out their cues, and then using them. And it itches in her hands that she's not using magic, but if she throws that into the mix too fast, she thinks she might scare her new sparring partner off.
She's smiling because she thinks she's better than you.
Just. Like. Her.
A core meltdown works like this: the cooling unit busts and the fuel element, without dissipation, reaches its melting point. Was York her cooling unit? Was it Epsilon? Was she ever born with one, or had she learned the precise temperature to avoid liquefaction?
The metal cladding is breached, the molten fuel marries with the coolant and gas chokes the atmosphere. The alarm screams. People start running. Stay away. Heat, radiating like a solar flare, concentrated but not an explosion, never an explosion, starts eating. Control yourself. Unstoppable, miasmic, killer heat that when touched turns flesh to some liquid-other, sloughing off the body five days later after the radiation has settled in.
Lungs shriveled and black, blacker than the black-clad super soldier armada who'd strangled her revenge on the brink of completion and of course, of course it had to be her. She could have died at the hands of her father and would have jumped for joy that it hadn't been her, her, a fake, a fraud, a fraud-of-a-fraud—
She never did see Agent Texas's face behind her visor. Could never be certain that she was smiling.
You just know.
And on the brink of nuclear meltdown, Carolina has never felt so steady. She attacks in a great, successive flurry of jabs and kicks, blocks and punches, jumping back to avoid another crack of wood and hounding every opening. Her jaw muscle winds tight around the bone. Her teeth grind, grind, grind. She doesn't smile. She's in her element.
With such ferocity bearing down on her, she's having to take this more seriously, but it's no less enjoyable - her heart is as light as her feet have to be. Dodging and turning like this, it's interesting to play defensive with less of a call for blood in her heart than what used to screech during battle. Sure, there's still the thought of what it would be like to shatter Carolina's skull, or to slash open her stomach and watch all that anger come to naught, but she can ignore it. Blessed ease of ignorance.
Moving around like this, it's almost like she's dancing in her mind, with the occasional jab or strike as she sees openings. Everything that does make it through is a starburst of pain, a firm reminder of too slow, overlooked, brace for it, and Fever knows she'll be sleeping awkwardly to compensate. But it's all too apparent - Carolina's acting like there's a collar on her neck, one made to squeeze if she lets up, pressing her on and on.
Fever could throw the match. Appease Carolina's pride, make her feel like she won. But pride is not what's called for here - and besides, it'd injure Fever's own to pull such a stunt for a stranger. So instead, she stays persistent, learning what of the other woman she can.
Are you seriously doing this again? You'll run yourself into the ground, C.
If Epsilon were here to talk her down, maybe she would have stopped. He'd say it's okay, or it's just a spar, or she's trying to have fun, not kill you, in that annoying nasal tone she's grown to appreciate. And Carolina, begrudged but not objecting, would have thrown in the towel, thanked Fever for her time and stalked off.
Epsilon isn't here.
She isn't running herself into the ground, damnit. She's winning. She doesn't care at what cost— an arm, a leg, a life. She'll come back. Death is an irrelevant obstacle. Something to be walked around, not hurdle over.
I can do this.
But the effort she puts into landing hits goes unrewarded. Fever continues her dance. Strikes consistently and unforgivingly with her staff. Black and blue spots are sure to follow. Fleshy humiliation. Carolina anticipates staring at them, scrutinizing them, damning them and Fever until she's red in the face and ready to tear her own skin off. She should be faster than this. Better.
She careers forward and lets out a wild animal's cry, all the ugly rage she's learned to keep clenched between molars coming out as a last resort—
In a flash, Fever's on her - not crouched, not risking her balance, but on her, knees bracketing Carolina's body and leaning over. This close, in her eyes is a glinting, the self leashed and at her heels. But never, never less dangerous.
A blade in her hand instead of the staff, though she had given no appearance of wearing one. Cool iron pressed against the heated flesh of Carolina's neck, the keen edge just resting on the skin.
Fever's on her in an instant, meager weight pressing her back against the dirt. Think fast. A mount like this is dangerous. A dirty move. The soldier on top gets all the downward momentum while she's flailing to protect targets one and two. Straight arms can be swatted and a boxer's block collapses like a cardboard box under force.
Then she'll buck up. A bridge and thigh bump will break her posture and give her the opportunity to—
Sharp, sharp cold.
"No—" Snarled like an animal. Her eyes, a wild green frame. She will not give up. She will not give up. There's a way to get out of this, there always is.
One hand flies up to clamp around Fever's trapezius. Nails bite crescent moons into pale, pale skin.
Her opposite hand burrows into Fever's hair.
Her heart races. She's livid. How dare she.
If her opponent looks closely, she'll see blade kiss raging pulse.
For a wild, thoughtless second, she wonders if Carolina is going to pull her down and close the distance. But not everyone has battle lust the way she and a few others do, or would seek to disorient an opponent that way. And Carolina is still under the impression that she has a choice in this.
Easy solution. Show her how outmatched she is. Fever's free hand wraps around the first hand to latch on - better to bleed a little than to have her hair ripped out.
"Fulgor."
Her eyes fairly shine, and what travels through her hand, leaps into Carolina, is lightning. Sharp, bright, burning electricity coursing through her, a live wire gripping her, a flash of a moment that floods through the body and robs one of their reflexes, the heart thrown out of and back into alignment in the same breath.
(And lingering in the air afterwards is the scent of ozone, almost acrid, almost sweet, like the aftermath of a storm.)
A cantrip, but considering Carolina's current condition, Fever doesn't think she'll need to make it any stronger. And her eyes stay fixed on Carolina's face, to see if she'll catch that she's dealing with strength that has nothing to do with muscles and military discipline.
Carolina's body is a tangle of copper wires for which electricity courses through, and for an incalculable fraction of a second she's convinced this is it. Death, albeit impermanent, in the form of bright white flash and total nerve ejection.
She can feel nothing and everything.
Her body goes involuntarily stiff. Tendons retreat fingers into fists. Heart shutters like a water ballon against concrete. Any amount of additional force and it might have burst inside her chest. No, not burst. Arrest. A tower collapsed as a consequence of war, all dust and debris and tough red muscle.
So she had this up her sleeve the entire time.
She was humoring you.
Carolina is humiliated.
Or— she will be, once she stops screaming.
Half in panic, half at the mercy of blind, excruciated rage, Carolina throws her hands over her face and bucks her hips. Jerks, turns, claws at the ground, off off off of off how hard can it fucking be? She doesn't care about the knife. How its keen edge nicks her skin and draws beads of blood. Adrenaline removes it from her memory and survival instinct turns her into a bucking bull.
Grit your teeth. You can take it. You can't lose. You can't can't can't—
Carolina holds her opponent's gaze through half-squinted eyes and caves. She can't do it. She can't take the pain. She wheezes where lightning chases air from hearty lungs and curls barbs around her heart.
Carolina beats her hand hard against Fever's arm. Tapping out. The universal sign of complete and utter failure.
Instantly, it's over. A lightning strike, not a sustained assault. She yields, and Fever will push no further. Good girl.
Pushing herself back to her feet, she tucks the knife away, a sleight of hand at her back. She can feel the way her own heart still pounds, coming back to the current place and time. And her opponent is on the ground, and though blood rushes in her ears, there is no stirring to eviscerate her, to go and take advantage.
Instead, there's just an extended hand, an offer to help pull her up. Truthfully, she doesn't think Carolina will take it, but she offers all the same.
Fever's suspicion is correct— Carolina doesn't take her hand. She swats it away to roll onto her elbows and knees, forehead pressed into the dirt as she continues to writhe in lightning's abhorrent aftermath. Ground yourself, says some faceless instinct without really saying. An infantile curling in on oneself that'll bring on fresh waves of shame once she's up off the ground.
Carolina cradles her head in her arms.
Her face burns. Her eyelids flutter. Her skull aches. She catches the scent of ozone and what reminds her of scorched flesh. You smell a lot of burning bodies in the midst of war.
This can't be happening.
"What— is your problem—"
Another pained noise.
"You like to humiliate people— is that it? I was fine with the stick— the knife was a dirty move— but this?" The ground spins. Or maybe that's just her. Carolina, in a final fit of protest, slams her fist against the ground. Her knuckles cry out. The dirt gives an unsatisfactory pack sound. "You led me on. I'm— I'm stronger than this— you don't know what I can do—"
"I don't doubt that. I don't doubt you're capable of a lot more."
In contrast, Fever's simply going to pick up the quarterstaff from where she dropped it, brushing a bit of dirt from the shaft. Letting her throw her tantrum - and oh, she could talk about humiliation, about Efrain and what he put her through. Being beaten in front of the whole town. But she won't - it's not time to compare scars. Not in that respect.
"But I didn't lead you on just because the idea of your opponent having magic never crossed your mind." A tiny pause. "What would you have done if I didn't? Let me guess - your head cracked into mine to throw me off for the half second you'd need to flip our positions, either twisting or outright snapping my wrist to disarm me, and then probably soundly beating me like you did your sandbag. Keep me pinned until I ask for mercy, and then make me say it twice. How close did I get?"
Because she would do that herself. Because she couldn't bear submission, losing.
"Pretty damn close," She grunts, peeling herself off the ground like a corpse rising from its grave. Onto knees first. Up into a half squat. Dirt scuffs her forehead. Her ponytail sags where she's tied it up with string. She looks like a complete, utter mess. This is why we soldiers wear helmets. To hide the shame a little better. It's an unfamiliar taste. Like Covenant blood. She detests it.
"Drop the stick and ditch the lightning, I'll show you exactly what I would have done."
But she sways on standing. Her knees tremble, recovering slowly— too slowly— from the shock to her system. If she had her gear this wouldn't be a problem. What's it take to get a healing unit around here? The point stands— she's in no shape to fight, no matter how she hounds herself forward. Oh, how she cannot resist it.
Blood trickles from her neck and chases a line of sweat down, down to where she's wrapped her torso in compression wrap. Carolina manages two steps toward Fever then collapses onto one knee. Pant, pant, pant.
"Let's save that for round two, yeah? Leaves you room to surprise me."
As if she didn't just hand her ass to her, she goes to where she has her bag, pulling out the sending stone for a message. In a softer voice, so it's less clear to Carolina:
"Artemy, need your help. Your patient's been beaten pretty thoroughly, exhausted, and hit with a dose of lightning - and her pride's as roughed up. She'll need you to get back to town."
If he needs payment for the supplies, she'll cover it. But she'll mention where they are as well.
"I'm— fine. Five minutes. I just need— five minutes."
Come on, Carolina. You've broke ribs. Fractured bone. You've torn your ACL twice. Broken your nose. You can handle a little bit of inclement weather. Stand. Up.
She stands up. Teeters like a civie building caught in an explosion. Iron on the brink of melting. Bent, limp.
"See? Fine. Put that stupid stone away."
Fine, she says. Anyone one with eyes will see otherwise.
It doesn't take him long to show up. Maybe it's simply the fact that he's tall, larger legs mean longer strides, but he still seems to have taken this seriously. With him he's brought a pack, a bit of a medical bag.
He looks to Fever curiously, and then to Carolina. Artemy's quick to offer her an arm to lean on, and he will not be taking no for an answer.
"... A friendly fight?" He asks, eyebrows quirked up in interest. It really is none of his business, but he is a protagonist, which makes him naturally curious as to how Carolina ended up like this to begin with.
"Just a spar," Fever responds, all bright eyes and a smile. "We both had the idea to come train here, and a living opponent's better than a sandbag, right? Less predictable."
She says this as if she didn't casually admit to shocking Carolina with lightning. It's a cantrip, walk it off.
"But we got enthusiastic, and, well...an expert's eye would soothe a few concerns."
Carolina hesitates to accept the arm that's offered to her, stomach tossing in its vehement rejection to admitting defeat. She's fine. Fine, damnit.
Sweat glistens across her forehead. Chases down her neck. Another second spent free-standing and she's likely to fold in on herself, heart kicking around like a rabbit between her rips. Do hearts usually beat that fast?
Conceding (if only to avoid the embarrassment of total collapse), Carolina leans her weight into Artemy's shoulder.
"She electrocuted me. In the face. That sound friendly to you?"
He is avoiding the smirk that threatens to spill onto his face. Instead her takes a hankerchief out of his pocket, dabbing the sweat off of Carolina's forehead. His hands are surprisingly gentle, which is surprising. He's a large man, with hands to match, but somehow his hands still manage to barely touch her as he dabs the beads of sweat off and away to try to make her a bit more comfortable.
"Perhaps a friendly fight taken too far, then." He throws a knowing glance Fever's way as he holds Carolina steady, "Perhaps we should take this back to my clinic. You appear to be in one piece, but I'd like to get a better look at you there..."
Carolina glares daggers at him, but doesn't turn her face away from the cool handkerchief he wields. Hands like Maine's— large. Careful, when he needs them to be. Jesus, they're treating her like kid. And worse, she's about fifteen seconds away from pitching a fit like one. Juvenile demands slung at a faster rate than Fever's quarterstaff jabs, 'I'm fine', 'Let's go again', 'I'm not finished yet'.
"A better look at what? I can stand, can't I?"
Dubious.
And for a second time, Artemy makes it perfectly clear he isn't taking no for an answer.
"I'm pretty sure he could carry you, if you wanted to be difficult about it."
Let her follow behind the pair, knowing that it would be for the best if her own injuries were looked at and attended to. She doesn't exactly love being in pain, after all, even if she's fine at dealing with it.
"Barely." He says to Carolina, and it's obvious that he means the scathing remark, "Don't make me carry you, for your own sake."
Artemy wraps his arm around her waist, both shielding her and holding her up to make sure she'll make the journey over to his clinic. And yeah, he's not taking no for an answer as he begins a leisurely walking pace to the direction he just came from.
"You carry me and you'll have a bigger problem." Carolina grouses, hooking her arm around Artemy's wide shoulder to support herself. And together, like two people in a three-legged race they never asked to participate in (with Fever meandering behind to enjoy the spectacle), they're on their way.
Walking helps. It does.
The best thing a soldier can do is walk off the brunt of their injury. Keep the body moving so that it remembers how it's meant to function. Injuries are secondary to action, and war calls for action relentlessly.
She walks on.
Allows her vision to blur at her own will so that she might replace the scene with something else; the roar of an EVAC ship having just touched down against the earth, the tang of Covenant blood in the air and heft of armor clinging to her body. Falcon inbound to your position...
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A jab to the quad lumborum puts distance between Carolina and her opponent. Sends pain star-bursting from lower spine to neck, taking root in teeth which clench habitually. She jumps into a back handspring and ignores the way her vertebrae protest.
Rarely does Agent Carolina take the first hit during a spar.
This is starting off just great.
Come on. Don't let a little spinal tap throw you off your game, C.
He's right.
She lands on splayed hands and swings herself to standing, steeling her resolve and kicking up dirt in her quick burst forward. Challenge distance with close-quarters combat. She meets Fever with an attempted right-hook, then closed-fisted jab to the side.
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And she smiles, eyes focused, because she can already tell this spar will be worth it. Doesn't hurt that her opponent's got some anger - if there's any way to draw it out of her, it might yet sharpen the blade. Raging against shadows.
Distance means the other will be forced to give chase, and pulled back like she is, there's room to swing - it'll be at those impressive legs, trying to force her off-balance for a follow up.
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Carolina breathes hard to knock the hair out of her face. Dissatisfied, even with the blow she did manage to Fever's chest. Not hard enough. Should have knocked her several feet back. You can do better. Should do better. But she's quick. Damn quick, and won't allow herself to be so easily caught.
Her staff forces distance between them, pitting Carolina at the ultimate disadvan—
Stop. Making. Excuses.
If she wants to be chased. Chase her.
She dives forward. A 'whizz' as intricately carved wood splices through the air, aimed to knock her shins out from under her. Gathering her weight into her toes, Carolina springs to avoid impact. Feels a rush of air just under her feet. Too close. A second sooner and she would have crashed into the dirt.
Try, try again.
You can do this.
You can do this!
She can do this.
Carolina sticks the landing. Feels good about it. About the ground, solid beneath her feet, and the way her heel kicks up grass and dust in her rush forward, ready, ready, ready to attack—
Another whistle of wood splicing the air.
Wait—
Too fast—
Crack!—
Wood to shin. Center of balance suddenly not-so-centered.
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It's fun. This is fun, in a way that shattering those glass statues couldn't be, in a way that fighting a dummy or shadowboxing can't be. It's adapting to someone, figuring out their cues, and then using them. And it itches in her hands that she's not using magic, but if she throws that into the mix too fast, she thinks she might scare her new sparring partner off.
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She's smiling.
She thinks this is a joke.
She's smiling because she thinks she's better than you.
Just. Like. Her.
A core meltdown works like this: the cooling unit busts and the fuel element, without dissipation, reaches its melting point. Was York her cooling unit? Was it Epsilon? Was she ever born with one, or had she learned the precise temperature to avoid liquefaction?
The metal cladding is breached, the molten fuel marries with the coolant and gas chokes the atmosphere. The alarm screams. People start running. Stay away. Heat, radiating like a solar flare, concentrated but not an explosion, never an explosion, starts eating. Control yourself. Unstoppable, miasmic, killer heat that when touched turns flesh to some liquid-other, sloughing off the body five days later after the radiation has settled in.
Lungs shriveled and black, blacker than the black-clad super soldier armada who'd strangled her revenge on the brink of completion and of course, of course it had to be her. She could have died at the hands of her father and would have jumped for joy that it hadn't been her, her, a fake, a fraud, a fraud-of-a-fraud—
She never did see Agent Texas's face behind her visor. Could never be certain that she was smiling.
You just know.
And on the brink of nuclear meltdown, Carolina has never felt so steady. She attacks in a great, successive flurry of jabs and kicks, blocks and punches, jumping back to avoid another crack of wood and hounding every opening. Her jaw muscle winds tight around the bone. Her teeth grind, grind, grind. She doesn't smile. She's in her element.
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Moving around like this, it's almost like she's dancing in her mind, with the occasional jab or strike as she sees openings. Everything that does make it through is a starburst of pain, a firm reminder of too slow, overlooked, brace for it, and Fever knows she'll be sleeping awkwardly to compensate. But it's all too apparent - Carolina's acting like there's a collar on her neck, one made to squeeze if she lets up, pressing her on and on.
Fever could throw the match. Appease Carolina's pride, make her feel like she won. But pride is not what's called for here - and besides, it'd injure Fever's own to pull such a stunt for a stranger. So instead, she stays persistent, learning what of the other woman she can.
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Are you seriously doing this again? You'll run yourself into the ground, C.
If Epsilon were here to talk her down, maybe she would have stopped. He'd say it's okay, or it's just a spar, or she's trying to have fun, not kill you, in that annoying nasal tone she's grown to appreciate. And Carolina, begrudged but not objecting, would have thrown in the towel, thanked Fever for her time and stalked off.
Epsilon isn't here.
She isn't running herself into the ground, damnit. She's winning. She doesn't care at what cost— an arm, a leg, a life. She'll come back. Death is an irrelevant obstacle. Something to be walked around, not hurdle over.
I can do this.
But the effort she puts into landing hits goes unrewarded. Fever continues her dance. Strikes consistently and unforgivingly with her staff. Black and blue spots are sure to follow. Fleshy humiliation. Carolina anticipates staring at them, scrutinizing them, damning them and Fever until she's red in the face and ready to tear her own skin off. She should be faster than this. Better.
She careers forward and lets out a wild animal's cry, all the ugly rage she's learned to keep clenched between molars coming out as a last resort—
And is knocked flat onto her back.
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A blade in her hand instead of the staff, though she had given no appearance of wearing one. Cool iron pressed against the heated flesh of Carolina's neck, the keen edge just resting on the skin.
"Yield."
It's not a question. Not in that tone.
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She's never seen a human move so fast. Never.
Fever's on her in an instant, meager weight pressing her back against the dirt. Think fast. A mount like this is dangerous. A dirty move. The soldier on top gets all the downward momentum while she's flailing to protect targets one and two. Straight arms can be swatted and a boxer's block collapses like a cardboard box under force.
Then she'll buck up. A bridge and thigh bump will break her posture and give her the opportunity to—
Sharp, sharp cold.
"No—" Snarled like an animal. Her eyes, a wild green frame. She will not give up. She will not give up. There's a way to get out of this, there always is.
One hand flies up to clamp around Fever's trapezius. Nails bite crescent moons into pale, pale skin.
Her opposite hand burrows into Fever's hair.
Her heart races. She's livid. How dare she.
If her opponent looks closely, she'll see blade kiss raging pulse.
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Easy solution. Show her how outmatched she is. Fever's free hand wraps around the first hand to latch on - better to bleed a little than to have her hair ripped out.
"Fulgor."
Her eyes fairly shine, and what travels through her hand, leaps into Carolina, is lightning. Sharp, bright, burning electricity coursing through her, a live wire gripping her, a flash of a moment that floods through the body and robs one of their reflexes, the heart thrown out of and back into alignment in the same breath.
(And lingering in the air afterwards is the scent of ozone, almost acrid, almost sweet, like the aftermath of a storm.)
A cantrip, but considering Carolina's current condition, Fever doesn't think she'll need to make it any stronger. And her eyes stay fixed on Carolina's face, to see if she'll catch that she's dealing with strength that has nothing to do with muscles and military discipline.
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Carolina's body is a tangle of copper wires for which electricity courses through, and for an incalculable fraction of a second she's convinced this is it. Death, albeit impermanent, in the form of bright white flash and total nerve ejection.
She can feel nothing and everything.
Her body goes involuntarily stiff. Tendons retreat fingers into fists. Heart shutters like a water ballon against concrete. Any amount of additional force and it might have burst inside her chest. No, not burst. Arrest. A tower collapsed as a consequence of war, all dust and debris and tough red muscle.
So she had this up her sleeve the entire time.
She was humoring you.
Carolina is humiliated.
Or— she will be, once she stops screaming.
Half in panic, half at the mercy of blind, excruciated rage, Carolina throws her hands over her face and bucks her hips. Jerks, turns, claws at the ground, off off off of off how hard can it fucking be? She doesn't care about the knife. How its keen edge nicks her skin and draws beads of blood. Adrenaline removes it from her memory and survival instinct turns her into a bucking bull.
Grit your teeth. You can take it. You can't lose. You can't can't can't—
Carolina holds her opponent's gaze through half-squinted eyes and caves. She can't do it. She can't take the pain. She wheezes where lightning chases air from hearty lungs and curls barbs around her heart.
Carolina beats her hand hard against Fever's arm. Tapping out. The universal sign of complete and utter failure.
She can't even bring herself to say stop.
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Pushing herself back to her feet, she tucks the knife away, a sleight of hand at her back. She can feel the way her own heart still pounds, coming back to the current place and time. And her opponent is on the ground, and though blood rushes in her ears, there is no stirring to eviscerate her, to go and take advantage.
Instead, there's just an extended hand, an offer to help pull her up. Truthfully, she doesn't think Carolina will take it, but she offers all the same.
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Fever's suspicion is correct— Carolina doesn't take her hand. She swats it away to roll onto her elbows and knees, forehead pressed into the dirt as she continues to writhe in lightning's abhorrent aftermath. Ground yourself, says some faceless instinct without really saying. An infantile curling in on oneself that'll bring on fresh waves of shame once she's up off the ground.
Carolina cradles her head in her arms.
Her face burns. Her eyelids flutter. Her skull aches. She catches the scent of ozone and what reminds her of scorched flesh. You smell a lot of burning bodies in the midst of war.
This can't be happening.
"What— is your problem—"
Another pained noise.
"You like to humiliate people— is that it? I was fine with the stick— the knife was a dirty move— but this?" The ground spins. Or maybe that's just her. Carolina, in a final fit of protest, slams her fist against the ground. Her knuckles cry out. The dirt gives an unsatisfactory pack sound. "You led me on. I'm— I'm stronger than this— you don't know what I can do—"
I can do this.
I am not weak.
Her position says otherwise.
She needs to get up, now.
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In contrast, Fever's simply going to pick up the quarterstaff from where she dropped it, brushing a bit of dirt from the shaft. Letting her throw her tantrum - and oh, she could talk about humiliation, about Efrain and what he put her through. Being beaten in front of the whole town. But she won't - it's not time to compare scars. Not in that respect.
"But I didn't lead you on just because the idea of your opponent having magic never crossed your mind." A tiny pause. "What would you have done if I didn't? Let me guess - your head cracked into mine to throw me off for the half second you'd need to flip our positions, either twisting or outright snapping my wrist to disarm me, and then probably soundly beating me like you did your sandbag. Keep me pinned until I ask for mercy, and then make me say it twice. How close did I get?"
Because she would do that herself. Because she couldn't bear submission, losing.
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"Pretty damn close," She grunts, peeling herself off the ground like a corpse rising from its grave. Onto knees first. Up into a half squat. Dirt scuffs her forehead. Her ponytail sags where she's tied it up with string. She looks like a complete, utter mess. This is why we soldiers wear helmets. To hide the shame a little better. It's an unfamiliar taste. Like Covenant blood. She detests it.
"Drop the stick and ditch the lightning, I'll show you exactly what I would have done."
But she sways on standing. Her knees tremble, recovering slowly— too slowly— from the shock to her system. If she had her gear this wouldn't be a problem. What's it take to get a healing unit around here? The point stands— she's in no shape to fight, no matter how she hounds herself forward. Oh, how she cannot resist it.
Blood trickles from her neck and chases a line of sweat down, down to where she's wrapped her torso in compression wrap. Carolina manages two steps toward Fever then collapses onto one knee. Pant, pant, pant.
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As if she didn't just hand her ass to her, she goes to where she has her bag, pulling out the sending stone for a message. In a softer voice, so it's less clear to Carolina:
"Artemy, need your help. Your patient's been beaten pretty thoroughly, exhausted, and hit with a dose of lightning - and her pride's as roughed up. She'll need you to get back to town."
If he needs payment for the supplies, she'll cover it. But she'll mention where they are as well.
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"I'm— fine. Five minutes. I just need— five minutes."
Come on, Carolina. You've broke ribs. Fractured bone. You've torn your ACL twice. Broken your nose. You can handle a little bit of inclement weather. Stand. Up.
She stands up. Teeters like a civie building caught in an explosion. Iron on the brink of melting. Bent, limp.
"See? Fine. Put that stupid stone away."
Fine, she says. Anyone one with eyes will see otherwise.
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It doesn't take him long to show up. Maybe it's simply the fact that he's tall, larger legs mean longer strides, but he still seems to have taken this seriously. With him he's brought a pack, a bit of a medical bag.
He looks to Fever curiously, and then to Carolina. Artemy's quick to offer her an arm to lean on, and he will not be taking no for an answer.
"... A friendly fight?" He asks, eyebrows quirked up in interest. It really is none of his business, but he is a protagonist, which makes him naturally curious as to how Carolina ended up like this to begin with.
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She says this as if she didn't casually admit to shocking Carolina with lightning. It's a cantrip, walk it off.
"But we got enthusiastic, and, well...an expert's eye would soothe a few concerns."
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Carolina hesitates to accept the arm that's offered to her, stomach tossing in its vehement rejection to admitting defeat. She's fine. Fine, damnit.
Sweat glistens across her forehead. Chases down her neck. Another second spent free-standing and she's likely to fold in on herself, heart kicking around like a rabbit between her rips. Do hearts usually beat that fast?
Conceding (if only to avoid the embarrassment of total collapse), Carolina leans her weight into Artemy's shoulder.
"She electrocuted me. In the face. That sound friendly to you?"
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"Perhaps a friendly fight taken too far, then." He throws a knowing glance Fever's way as he holds Carolina steady, "Perhaps we should take this back to my clinic. You appear to be in one piece, but I'd like to get a better look at you there..."
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Carolina glares daggers at him, but doesn't turn her face away from the cool handkerchief he wields. Hands like Maine's— large. Careful, when he needs them to be. Jesus, they're treating her like kid. And worse, she's about fifteen seconds away from pitching a fit like one. Juvenile demands slung at a faster rate than Fever's quarterstaff jabs, 'I'm fine', 'Let's go again', 'I'm not finished yet'.
"A better look at what? I can stand, can't I?"
Dubious.
And for a second time, Artemy makes it perfectly clear he isn't taking no for an answer.
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Let her follow behind the pair, knowing that it would be for the best if her own injuries were looked at and attended to. She doesn't exactly love being in pain, after all, even if she's fine at dealing with it.
"Lead on, Artemy - we'll go."
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Artemy wraps his arm around her waist, both shielding her and holding her up to make sure she'll make the journey over to his clinic. And yeah, he's not taking no for an answer as he begins a leisurely walking pace to the direction he just came from.
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"You carry me and you'll have a bigger problem." Carolina grouses, hooking her arm around Artemy's wide shoulder to support herself. And together, like two people in a three-legged race they never asked to participate in (with Fever meandering behind to enjoy the spectacle), they're on their way.
Walking helps. It does.
The best thing a soldier can do is walk off the brunt of their injury. Keep the body moving so that it remembers how it's meant to function. Injuries are secondary to action, and war calls for action relentlessly.
She walks on.
Allows her vision to blur at her own will so that she might replace the scene with something else; the roar of an EVAC ship having just touched down against the earth, the tang of Covenant blood in the air and heft of armor clinging to her body. Falcon inbound to your position...
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