Chase felt her backpack sliding off her shoulders, and she shot out an arm to catch it just in time.
“How does it feel, Chase?” Melissa C. gloated. “To be totally out of your element? Unable to defend yourself? Completely at my mercy? Did you miss it? Or did- Gaaarckk!” Chase bent at the waist, reaching up with all her abdominal strength to jab a thick combat knife into the girl's chest, right below her neck. She actually penetrated whatever armor Melissa C. had in her body, sparks showering out of the wound.
“Aaack!” shouted Melissa C. Immediately she began to descend. “How?!” Then, she saw the backpack. It was half open.
Chase had not liked being without a weapon the first time she fought Melissa C. She decided to make sure she'd have one next time.
She jerked the knife out of the wound, then slammed it into the side of the girl's neck. Here, instead of sparks, she drew blood.
Melissa C. howled in pain, and her descent quickened. Completely forgetting Chase, she let go of one of Chase's ankles to try removing the knife. Chase quickly pulled herself up and grabbed onto the cyborg more securely, wrapping her arms around her waist. Melissa C. was too shocked to try and shake her off, her thoughts completely absorbed by her wound.
When they were low enough, Chase let go, dropping onto the roof of a building and breaking her fall with a tumble. Melissa landed a couple dozen feet away, staggering a little as she mistimed her landing. Her jetpack collapsed into her back as she jerked at the knife once, then twice. On the third attempt, it came free with a fountain of fluid, as though she'd popped the cork on a champagne bottle, although the color was more akin to red wine. Then, to Chase's astonishment, the bleeding slowed and stopped. Skin and flesh bound together. In a matter of seconds, the wound had healed.
With a growl of rage, Melissa C. hurled the knife at Chase and missed. “Bitch! You thought you could beat me with that toy? Disgusting!” she snarled. She felt the smooth skin of her neck, and gave a cold grin. “I'm already operating at one-hundred percent again. Looks like you're back to square one.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Chase noticed a very tall, very familiar flagpole next to the building they were on. She looked around, and realized they were back at Sunnycrest High. Specifically, on top of it.
Melissa C.'s left arm split and cracked down the middle, and the two halves folded away to reveal a large gun barrel. Chase jumped behind an air conditioning unit just in time to avoid a thorough perforation. Bullets struck the metal in a chain of echoing clangs.
Chase dug around in her backpack for another weapon...but all she found were schoolbooks. She thought she put another knife in there. Did it fall out while they were flying?
She quickly surveyed the roof to see if there was anything else she could use. When she was satisfied, she set her backpack aside. No knife, no problem. This wasn't like Alicia's bedroom. Here, she had options.
Melissa C. stopped firing. Numerous holes had been punched in the a/c unit, but there was no light coming through from the other side. She was wasting her time and ammunition trying to shoot through it. On full alert, she snuck toward it, the smoking barrel leading the advance.
She rounded the unit. Chase wasn't there. She looked around, annoyed. Had she snuck off somehow?
The unit was one of many; each classroom needed one, perhaps not at this time of year, but eventually, when the weather got warm again. This resulted in a sort of huge, loose grid of air conditioners. These, mixed with vents, pipes and other standard urban roof décor, gave Chase plenty of hiding places, and would believably make it possible for her to move around without being seen.
Annoyed, Melissa C. moved on to the next unit, carefully checking behind it, and then to the next one. A loud thunk behind her made her whirl around and fire a burst of shots. There was nothing there...well, not quite nothing. Over by the gym, a large plume of some kind of gas or steam was blossoming. It was getting taller and taller, so much so that it began to resemble a smoking chimney. What the hell was that cannibal up to?
She approached slowly, checking behind everything she passed and regularly looking over her shoulder. Something about this was definitely suspicious. Melissa C. had already walked into one of this girl's traps, and she wouldn't be walking into another one.
The source of the steam was a clean, round hole in the roof. Ragged, stripped screw holes encircled it, suggesting that whatever was covering this hole had been forcefully broken off. A lid of some kind? Or maybe a pipe?
WHANG. It was a pipe. Chase slugged the heavy steel tube against the back of the cyborg's head with a blow that would have instantly killed a normal person. Melissa C. lived, but she felt the strike. She was rattled by it. And most importantly to Chase, she was hurt by it.
Melissa C. spun around, raising her gun with curses on her lips. Chase's pipe connected again, this time with the side of the girl's head. Melissa C. heard and felt a metallic crack reverberate through her skull. When the sound stopped, she realized her jaw was hanging slack on the right side, clearly broken.
She blocked a third hit with her arm, then whacked Chase with the side of her gun, sending the girl flying. As she composedly popped her jaw back into place, it made a disgusting crunch which only she heard. Chase landed on the gym roof and skidded about ten feet.
Melissa C. looked down at her gun arm and saw it change, the barrel separating and becoming bigger, wide enough around to fit a cabbage in it. As Chase shakily stood, Melissa C. pointed this new gun at the blonde and fired.
Chase expected some kind of bazooka shell, but what she got instead was a whirling bola: two heavy balls connected by a chain and intended for capturing animals alive by wrapping around their legs. She jumped out of its way and it coiled itself around a small ventilation pipe behind her. She would have forgotten about it then, had she not heard a small, rhythmic beeping emanating from one of the balls.
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She jumped clear of them just in time to avoid a massive explosion. A wave of heat hit her, followed by a shower of debris. When the smoke cleared, a huge hole had opened up beside her, fragments of the structure falling to the basketball court below with loud, wooden claps.
Before her, Melissa C. laughed. “Holy crap! Sorry, I still haven't used all of these weapons. I didn't expect THAT big of a boom!”
As Chase tried to stand up, and Melissa C. lobbed another bola at her. It found her, tightly binding her exhausted legs. A third snared her torso, strapping her right arm to her side. The force of the projectiles threw her off balance, and she was unable to save herself from falling into the gaping pit.
She landed hard on her right elbow. A shock of pain stabbed through her, but she knew she didn't have time to suffer. The empty, spacious gym was echoing with the sound of the beeping bolas.
She decided to free her arm first, quickly loosing the bola and tossing it over by the locker rooms.
The arm was useless. She tried to move it, and all she got was a sensation of intense pain. Freeing it had been a waste of time.
She moved onto the legs. She unwrapped them as quickly as she could with only one hand. Melissa C. had fired this bola first. That meant it would also blow up firs-
BOOM! BOOM! The gym was rattled by one explosion, and then another, in quick succession.
Music to Melissa C.'s ears. She activated her jetpack again and eagerly hovered down into the hole. Did she do it? Did she get her? The smoke and dust was thick, so she turned on her thermal vision.
There, in reds and oranges, was a sight that made Melissa C.'s heart sink. Lying on the floor, in one piece, not blown to bits at all, was Chase. She'd gotten the bolas off in time. A detected heartbeat confirmed it. She was still alive.
“So, you've still got some fight left in you, huh?” asked Melissa C., changing her gun back into a regular arm as she stormed over to her prey. Chase stirred and tried to sit up, still dazed from the blast, but Melissa C. got to her first, rolling her over onto her back. Noticing the way Chase winced when her broken elbow hit the floor again, Melissa C. put a shoe to it, pressing down on it with an inhuman weight. Chase almost did something she had never done before: scream in pain. But she grit her teeth and resisted.
“Why don't you just give up? You can't beat me,” Melissa C. told her. “I'm a better hunter than you are. I have things in my bag of tricks you've never even heard of. I swear I'll put you out of your misery quickly.”
Chase quickly shook her head.
Melissa C. smiled and put a little more weight on her. Something crunched beneath her foot. Chase felt a whimper rise, but kept her mouth clamped shut. “I mean it. You won't feel a thing. I'm not a monster, Chase. I can show mercy.” She leaned over her and put her hands on her hips. “All you have to do is beg me for it. Beg me for mercy, the same way me and my friends begged it from you.”
“Stop it, Melissa C.!” A female voice echoed from behind the cyborg, on the other side of the gym. “Leave her alone!”
Melissa C. removed her foot and turned around. Standing there were Alicia, Caitlin and Lindsey.
“Oh, hey guys. What's up? You're a bit early, I still haven't killed her yet. Or did you want to watch?”
“Ch-chase! Are you okay?” cried Alicia.
Chase sat up, clutching her elbow. “Did hurt arm, but okay.”
“B-but the gym isn't okay!” said Lindsey, aghast. They looked around. As if the hole in the roof wasn't bad enough, many of their decorations had been destroyed by the explosions and flying debris.
The hay bale was in shambles. Alicia dropped to her knees beside it and cradled its remains in her arms. Tears sprang from her green eyes. “We...we worked forever...”
“What about the dance?” moaned Caitlin.
Melissa C. looked around at the destroyed gym. She did this? She caused all this damage?
That familiar feeling of being lost in her own body, of being a monster, returned to her again. She'd just ruined Harvest, something her friends had no doubt been looking forward to for months. This person she now was had made things worse once again.
And then something terrible happened. While Melissa C. sank into horror, felt herself being smothered in sadness...something in her head pushed it all away. Suddenly, she didn't care.
It was as though something cold and unfeeling was taking over her, asserting dominance over her thoughts and emotions, ruling them unfit to lead her. It was the same thing she felt when she was tormenting Chase, high in the sky. For a second, she was scared. Terrified. But then, that feeling disappeared too.
“You think I care about some stupid dance?” Melissa C. demanded. “I've danced with death, Caitlin.” Her arm flew in a wide gesture, indicating the whole gym and ending up at a tattered 'HARVEST TIME IS HERE!' banner. “You think any of this cutesy shit has any relevance at all to me now? I was imprisoned by your buddy over there for weeks, and left to die in a trap for weeks more. And yet you're worried more about HER well-being and this DANCE'S well-being than you are mine!”
The girls were gutted. “That's not true, Melissa C.,” said Lindsey gravely. “We're...we're very worried about you. We're your friends and we care about you. You're not acting like yourself.”
Melissa C. rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Don't give me that. Don't pretend you have my best interests in mind, you vulture. I know you were jumping up and down with excitement when you got my flier spot. You probably hoped I died out there in the woods. As far as you were concerned, everything would be hunky dory as long as I never came home.”
Lindsey looked crushed. “Melissa C...how can you say that? You KNOW that's not true. I respect and admire you. I was happy to be your base. I would never think that. And the Melissa C. I know would never say something like that.”
Melissa C. looked like she had a rebuttal, but a pain in her chest made her bite it back. Alicia took advantage of the silence.
“Melissa C., we know you're hurting. We see that you've been through a lot of...a lot of changes,” said Alicia sympathetically. Her heart was audible in every word. “And it tears us apart. You're our teammate, you know we'll always have your back. That's why we want to help you. We know you want to bring the old Melissa C. back. We want to help you do that. Please.”
The older girl wanted to believe her so badly it actually made her angry. “You'll never bring that person back! She doesn't exist anymore!” Melissa C. replied. She looked around at the scene of destruction, then walked over to the center of the court, beneath the gaping hole in the ceiling. She spread her arms. “This...is me now. This is who I am.” Then, she narrowed her eyes at Chase. “We'll go to three out of five, Chase. Next time we fight, believe me, I will kill you.”
Her jetpack fired up. Before she flew away, she looked at her fellow cheerleaders. “And if any of you stand in my way, I'll kill you too!”