“I, Nellie Ruth, am utterly impressed with the ever-changing battlefield that the first day of the cross zone finals yields!” Nellie Ruth’s voice could be heard by the various speakers spread throughout the arena. “The first front, the trainees gather and begin to try to overwhelm Therese Cistra with their numbers! The other trainees on the other hand—” Gollie went flying into one of the speakers that was stationed in one of the trees.

“Aw, man. I was kinda listening to that!” I said as I got in between Gollie and our enemy.

“You’re not missing anything, Anna. She was talking about that second front of fighters.” Gollie said as he got out of the tree.

Of course. That crazy second front of fighters that decided to go above and beyond. The ones that not only want to secure points, but want to stand heads and shoulders above the rest. The ones that are fighting titled CTs!

“Now, young lady, you have no business getting distracted by outside forces. Keep your focus on the enemy in front of you. That is the only way you’ll be able to defeat me.” The titled CT we were fighting was an older woman that stood straight as a pillar with her hands always behind her back. She’s very particular about manners and wants everyone to match her energy regarding such things. She introduced herself as “Miss Marionette” and beat us down until we gave our names. In other words, she’s setting the pace in this fight.

That puts us in a bad spot.

Gollie went charging at the CT in front of us and as he did, several strings shot out from the trees and went for different parts of his body. I countered by using my stemata to shoot out blotches of skin and muscle. As soon as they connected, the strings took the pieces and ascended back into the trees. She’s been mixing an attack like that along with throwing us around like ragdolls. With a name like “Miss Marionette” I can only think of one thing when strings get a hold of us. If it boils down to a fight of control over Gollie, I don’t think I’ll be able to win that, so we’ve just been ramming our heads against a wall trying to find an opening. At this rate, we’ll run out of time and fail.

Gollie got within her range, pulled his fist back, enlarged it using his stemata, and swung directly at Miss Marionette. She sighed and in one swift motion, sidestepped the attack, and dashed backwards. Before Gollie could realize it, his fist drove straight into a wall of strings and all the force put into his attack bounced right back at him and had him stagger back a few steps.

“Why are the both of you not trying to take my badge and run? You have better odds doing that than anything else.”

“Because if we beat you, that means we’re strong enough to beat a titled CT. And if we’re that strong, we may be on track to get titles ourselves!”

And in that case, I’ll make a name for myself as a CT that heals rather than hurts….

“It’s that overcockiness from your generation that barrels this country to its doom. You children have no sense of duty. Just doing what you want to do and not what you have to do. For example…your hair!” She pointed at me and I immediately straighted my back in surprise. “Y-yes?!”

“You must stop your rebellious phase and dye it back to its natural state.”

“Yes ma’am…” I slouched my shoulders as I thought about the logistics of dyeing my hair by tomorrow.

“B-but her pink hair is natural!” Gollie butted in, but she kept going. “And straighten your back!”

“Yes ma’am!” I immediately straightened my back again.

She reminds me so much of one of my aunts back home, it almost feels like I’m doing something wrong when I try to defy her.

Great…now she’s setting the pace physically and mentally.

“Your makeup is also indecent. It’s as if you’re screaming for attention. The wrong kind of attention.”

“Yes ma’am…”

“Have you even considered using your stemata more offensively? That’s its entire purpose.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Annabelle Hotch, you are the most indecent, uncouth piece of work I’ve ever come across…I haven’t even started to mention the friends you keep. You must sever ties with that parasite pair if you want to become a respectable counterterrorist. Do you understand?”

I then realized that she wasn’t just putting me down, she was putting down my friends too. The people that were doing their best to make a change. It was people like her that blocked the way with their nonsense.

“What’s so wrong with being friends with parasites?”

Miss Marionette scoffed and said, “Slum living group of people with no manners and no intentions to learn. Do I need to elaborate?”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Not the ones I’ve met! As someone from zone two, Ori taught me all kinds of manners! How to style my hair, how to apply makeup…Ori is a Haustorian that taught me how to do all of those things! She was able to become such a great person regardless of the environment she grew up in.

“Gollie Themis, was it? Your hair is also quite unkempt. You’re lucky you’re so tall, otherwise you’d never find a proper suitress—”

I muttered “You’re fault…” and Miss Marionette’s head darted back over to me.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s your fault the world’s this way! We were just born into it! You screwed everything up and we’re doing our best with the mess that you made!” I then pointed at her and resolutely yelled “and I don’t care that you talk like aunt Jessebelle!”

“Who in Taramos’ name—”

“You better get ready now! Because we’re launching our counterattack!”

“We are?!” Gollie looked so surprised, Miss Marionette scoffed. “Then I suppose I should take things a little more seriously as well…”

Before Gollie could move in and attempt another frontal assault against Miss Marionette several strings came from an unexpected place to deal a tide-changing blow to our fight. We considered and treated the titled CTs strings as webs. The problem is that no one considers the possibility of a spider building their web under the very ground they walk on.

Several bundles of strings shot out of the ground and wrapped themselves around Gollie. With my partner being completely restrained, the titled CT prepared her next attack. She finally pulled her hands away from her back and began to command full control over Gollie. As expected.

“I-I can’t control myself! Anna, run away!” Gollie barreled toward me as Miss Marionette puppeteered his movements from a safe distance. I planted my feet square on the ground and lowered my stance in preparation for my winning strategy. “Gollie, do you trust me?”

Gollie Themis’ lips parted for a brief moment before giving a resolute nod and smile. “With my life!”

Gollie grew past the size of the surrounding trees and was only growing larger. Once he was within arm’s reach of me, I used my stemata to create a volcano of flesh that propelled me into the air and straight towards Gollie’s head. I immediately latched onto his neck and gave him a wink.

“T-this is still part of the plan, right?”

“Yup!” I patted him on the cheek and used his collarbone as a launchpad to jump right off of. As I plummeted towards the ground, one of Gollie’s massive hands approached to grab and crush me like a bug. I pointed my finger at the encroaching hand and shouted at the top of my lungs “Strawberry Rebellion: Nervous transfer!”

And was immediately crushed into a bloody mess in the palm of Gollie’s colossal hand.

Miss Marionette

It’s going to take more than that to fool a titled counter terrorist, Annabelle. But how does your little trick work?

Several arms shot out of Gollie’s back and zipped towards me. She was probably able to pull this off due to the contact of her blood to Gollie’s skin. I leaped backwards with a light step, dodging each one of them. As I did, I couldn’t help but think about the parameters of her stemata. It’ll be my key to coming out on top.

Annabelle Hotch’s stemata is a complicated one that was mainly used for its ability to confiscate one’s autonomy. Like a disease, whoever makes contact with any part of her, be it flesh that she shoots out or other bodily fluids, runs the risk of having their bodily operations stripped from them. She could even grow entire appendages with her stemata theoretically. But that’s not practical whatsoever…it would require too much stem energy as well as years of practice.

But then it occurred to me…these kids live in impracticality. They would completely dash away protocol if it means securing a victory. So in theory…with enough mastery with her stemata…

“That stupid attack name might just show me a breakthrough in stemata techniques…”

“Not very lady-like to use a word like stupid, is it?” I heard the voice of Annabelle Hotch directly behind me.

I quickly turned around and noticed a completely naked Annabelle right in front of me. Before anything else, I couldn’t help but shield my eyes and scream from the depths of my heart. “Put some clothes on! Have you no shame, young lady?!”

She however ignored me and reached for my jugular. I swerved my body around and kicked the girl, following up the attack with a swinging my strings in a motion to restrain one of her arms.

That didn’t stop her though…

She simply grew an entirely new arm and used it to try and swing at me. Whilst I restrained that one, her original arm retracted within her body. She kept this strategy going while mixing her legs into her fighting style. I was helpless against her complete mastery of her stemata. She really did it. She repurposed her stemata from one that restrains and destroys the body of terrorists, to one that enhances her own abilities.

She’s amazing.

I saw the opportunity for a winning move and took it. I gathered every string in the area and encased Annabelle within a cocoon in one move. Her head drooped down for a moment, but she looked into my eyes with a devilish smile on her face, hair strands covering parts of her vision. “You’re too late, Aunty!”

At that moment, my eyes widened and I immediately fell to the floor. I used what little movement my eyes had remaining to scan my body and noticed the smallest cut on my cheek. So that’s what happened…during the exchange, she focused everything on landing the slightest scratch to claim victory.

“You’re probably wondering how I gave you the slip there.” She said while she patted me down, looking for my badge.

I wasn’t interested whatsoever, but I had the aching feeling she was going to tell me regardless…

“When I made that volcano of flesh, I kept my stemata in there and dispersed the skin. This was my first time applying my theory, but as long as my stemata is tied to a sizable clump of my cells, I can develop it into a close enough copy of myself!”

What she is talking about is essentially cloning via stemata. To put that much thought into that process…she truly has explored every possible facet of that stemata and made it her own.

However…

They say that every seven years, your skin completely replaces itself and you essentially have a new layer of skin on your body. But what she’s gloating about right now…

“You’re not even…human anymore…the next generation is falling to degeneracy and you’re proof of it.”

Such a taboo and reckless way to use a stemata. I’ll never approve of such a way of fighting.

“Anna!” The now freed Gollie Themis ran to Annabelle’s side and immediately offered his jacket. It looked like an oversized trench coat on the girl.

She finally found the badge, tossed it in the air, and caught it.

“Of course I’m still human! My definition is just a bit different than yours!” She said with a smile brimming from ear to ear. Her way of fighting is unorthodox to what the stemata is used for and arguably unethical…but, she defeated a titled CT.

Maybe these kids will be alright…