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 Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:59 am
Home sweet home.
It was like permanently moving into the Police Academy Barracks, only minus a roommate. His own bed, room to move, privacy. Definitely bigger than his space in the motor home had been. This was maybe the nicest place he'd ever stayed.
Harrison left the door open while he unpacked his gym bag. In spite of the murdering and death traps, he was feeling pretty good about his decision. He was doing good for himself. Moving up in the world. Part of a higher cause, or something. The shower played a part in the feeling, sure, and the fresh set of clothes and empty room all said new start. Maybe this time, things were finally going his way.
The promise of a little more murdering with bad guys on the sharp end of the proverbial knife sweetened the deal.
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Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 9:38 am
Ugh! Ughughughugh! Candace was practically running down the hall, Atropos' laughter and mocking remarks ringing through her head. She needed a shower. She needed to wash her mouth out. Augh was so disgusted with herself! It'd been through a golem and had been in the name of her mission's success but she just...she couldn't take it.
She passed an open door and nearly expected to see Jerry hanging from a broom at the top of the door. But that apparently wasn't his door. She paused, already a few get away from the door she had just passed as she glanced back toward it. Who was in that room? A few backwards steps were taken until she could see into the room. Who...was that?
"Why hello there." Candace leaned on the doorframe, deciding THIS was how she was going to wash away the terrible memory of that mission. "Don't think I've ever seen you before."
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Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 4:30 pm
Harrison didn't have to think hard to know who that voice belonged to. He looked up, half-expecting the same gas mask and pink gear.
The girl leaning in the doorway threw him off. Wasn't it...
"E-10? That you?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 1:42 am
The man looked surprised to see her, and at first it worried her. That was the look someone gave a person when they expected the m to be someone in specific. Did they know each other? Had they met? Did...did she kill him...? Oooh? You killed people? Candace nodded. A few. Atropos giggled and purred with delight. You must tell me next chance we get all about it! The excitement in Atropos' voice made Candace sigh. Fine, fine.
Now, back to this man. He was calling her E10..
...
No way...
Candace's eyes widened and her jaw dropped, that air of confidence she'd held moments ago shattering like a glass dropped on tile flooring. That voice. "Th..thirteen?" No...no. There was no way! She just stared, disbelief and shock written all over her face. It was him. It was really him. "You're..you're alive!" And then she was in the room and hurrying toward him to throw her arms around the man's neck. She really, really hoped this was E13...because if it wasn't then she was about to be very embarrassed.
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 5:24 am
"Woah, hey, what the hell are you so happy to see me for!"
Guilt, indifference, anger. Harrison had expected a few reactions, and none of them had been positive. E-10 had barreled through the lounge and out the door without even so much as a smirk in his direction. She had ended up like the rest of them, of course. They'd been playing with a stacked deck, there were no survivors from that stupid test. The cards had been stacked extra heavy in his direction, sure, and there had been a lot of accusations swung his way. But only one of them had been fatal.
He disentangled himself from her arms, shoving her back.
"I thought we were pals, or partners, or some s**t. I told you I didn't kill any of our guys, and I didn't. So why'd you waste me?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 1:39 pm
Why was he so confused?! Candace tried to pay it no mind, merely hugging onto him as tightly as she could until she was suddenly shoved back and away from him. She was confused now. Why wouldn't she be happy to see him? Hadn't they been friends? Yeah, she'd been furious when he didn't give her the pendant but...but....
Wait. What?
"Waste..you...?" She held her hands out to hug him again and thought better of it, clenching her hands into fists and bringing them back toward herself. "What are you talking about?" She didn't touch him! She..she did the opposite! She avenged him she...she did all that s**t...because of him she...
What the hell was he talking about?!
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 2:17 pm
"I got killed! And all the dead guys were hanging out in that bar with the piano. So I asked them what happened, and E7 and 5 said you happened. Over that useless jewelry. You could have said if you wanted one, I was doing everything I could to get rid of the damn things. I couldn't give them away fast enough. ...And you killed me."
They said it was over the pendants. Harrison still didn't understand that part, she hadn't said a word to him about the pendants. Maybe she figured he was lying about the trap room and was the traitor, okay. He hadn't been. But if he'd been in her shoes, that's what he would have thought. Still.
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 2:43 pm
"I know you got killed! What the hell do you think I...they said...I happened?" She wasn't sure how to feel now. She was proud of what she had done in that room. How many hunters could say they killed ten people in a single strike each with Caelius' scythe? There were others who had killed, but not as many as her...God, she wanted Caelius' scythe. She wanted to hold it. She just wanted to touch it again. If she couldn't wield it she just wanted to feel that thrill again. Atropos scoffed. I am a much better weapon than that thing. It's too big and bulky. I give you more! Candace made a soft shushing noise to her. Now was not the time.
Over. Useless. Jewelry.
And you killed me.
Candace stepped back and stared at E13 with the most hurt look, her eyes even welled up with tears. He thought she...!? "Th..they said...I killed you?" Those bastards! She was glad she killed them now! Lying assholes! She hoped they never came back! As far as she could remember, before Thirteen she was the only Epsilon to return. She was glad now. Her fists clenched tighter. "Did they mean to say I killed the person who killed you? Because I did not touch you. She killed you and then I...over jewelry? Those stupid goddamn pendants?! I got three of those things, you know. And they didn't do s**t. I didn't do any of that for the pendants. I did it for you." At first, anyway. It had started that way but then the moment she'd touched the scythe her mind had begun to deteriorate into nothing short of complete insanity. By the end of it she'd just barely managed to regain some sense of clarity before she'd died.
But damn had that felt good.
"I don't even...I...you believed them? Did you not see her cut you in half?!" She could understand him not seeing E10 run her through with a chair, but to not even remember that it wasn't her that killed him in the first place...that hurt. Candace took a step back toward the door, eyes narrowed. How could she have expected him to be grateful for what she did. He hadn't even been alive for it.
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 3:46 pm
Harrison was taken back by the wobbly, hurt expression. She didn't touch him? Then who had! And why did everyone say it was her? ...And she'd...done it all for him? Done what all?
This was steering right out of solving the mystery of his own murder and right into the territory of crying girls and everything being confusing.
"I well- no. I was trying to get rid of the other necklace. I didn't uh- I didn't see anything. I guess. I asked, everyone said it was you. I mean I couldn't think of a reason it would be you, but why would they all lie?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 4:47 pm
Candace was hurt, there was no other description for how she felt. Someone she had trusted in all that mess thought she killed him all because of a group of liars. She wasn't going to cry! Candace was better than that. But...damnit!
Those bastards. She wanted to find their pods and destroy them! Could she? Pretty please?! "You offered your pendant to some chick in exchange for sparing someone's life. She rejected it and killed you...so I killed her. It was that crazy Harry Potter girl. And then they just...those...!" She pulled at her own hair and growled in frustration. How dare they! "They were probably mad because I killed them."
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 5:19 pm
E-13 threw up his hands, then started rustling through his bag angrily.
"What did she kill me for! s**t!"
At least someone had avenged him. The unpacking wasn't going fast enough, and he just turned the bag inside out, funneling his need to shake and strangle something into it instead.
"Those pendants weren't anything but giant targets. Even if we'd found a traitor, which there apparently wasn't, and made it out of there alive, which nobody did, those Phoenix guys would have taken them when it was all over. They kept changing the rules of the game. And if it wasn't for that damn text-"
He paused bag-wringing.
"Wait, so you did still kill the other guys?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 7:22 pm
She merely shrugged, actually having had no idea why she actually killed him. The scythe seemed to have made anyone who held it a little crazy...that probably accounted for what she had done. Candace watched as he shook the bag out, looking down at the things on his bed. All of them had packed so lightly, even herself. There were a lot of things she didn't bring that she wished she had.
He had a point though. At the time she had convinced herself that she needed the pendant. That having the pendant would be some kind of epic Boss Bonus like a Legendary item on World of Warcraft. It had all been a lie though, bait exactly as he said. She rolled her eyes at the Phoenix thing. That had been so stupid. They still went on about that s**t. "I'm not just some pushover. I wouldn't have let them take them. I had three of those pendants. Three. I also had the scythe..." A small smile twitched at the corner of her lips and she fought it back, forcing herself not to drift back to the memories of that delicious rush of euphoria she felt wielding the scythe and slicing people up with a single cut of the blade.
Heh.
At his question Candace visibly paused to think. Why did she kill the others? "..One of them hit me, I think..." Why else? "Uh...the rest? I don't know. It just kind of happened. Before I knew it I'd killed ten people." And it felt good. It felt really good.
With me at your feet you'll be able to strike down anyone who dares stand in your path. Candace chuckled.
"I'd be doing them a favor if all of them are as stupid as the ones we saw back there." Candace said without thinking. She was replying to Atropos, though it could probably be taken as being an afterthought about that room. She turned to Thirteen again. "It's Candace, by the way. My real name. I mean, you're free to keep calling me E10. I'm quite proud of it. Just, y'know, if you want to call me anything else there's always my real name."
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 7:43 pm
Harrison grinned, and shrugged. "Don't guess it matters. But that clears it up. So long as we're square. The horse-things, those were the bad guys. That's who we should have been after. Monsters. And who we can go after now that we're...really on a team together."
He would have done the same as Candace probably. Eventually. If he'd had to. It had been every man for himself while they had been in the pods.
But the rules had changed again.
"Harrison," he said, holding out his hand.
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 10:17 pm
"It's more than just the horse things." Candace sighed, rubbing her temple with one hand and shaking her head. Definitely more than just the stupid horses. There were other horses, but there were also other things. Things that made her want to just...bang her head against a wall. "Well, it was a test. It wasn't..our task to take them out. We had to take each other out, too." She shrugged and pushed off the door frame to step further into the room, inviting herself to just sit on his bed. Candace supported herself with her hands resting behind her as she crossed one leg over the other. She even flicked her head as if to get hair out of her face but that was purely out of habit. She had cut her hair the night she left for this whole...situation. She figured it would aid her in feeling like she was starting a completely new life and all that cheesy s**t. "You've missed a lot though. A lot." She shook her head again and flopped back to stare up at the ceiling. She was tired. And she still felt completely disgusted with herself for the things she had done.
Candace blinked and sat up again as he formally introduced himself, smiling and reaching out to take his hand and give it a shake. "Nice to meet you, Harrison. Would you be annoyed if I slipped and called you Thirteen every now and then?" It would be out of habit, really. She was used to calling him E13, after all. Harrison was more of a nickname for her than a real name.
What strange logic you have. Candace rolled her eyes. So you know this guy? Candace nodded. How?
"From the te...er..." She actually blushed and glared down at the glowing jeweled rings on her hands. You're going to make me look crazy. Atropos cackled.
Too late! You've done it aaaaall on youuuur owwwwwwwn~! Ugh.
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Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:48 pm
He gripped her hand.
"Nah, Thirteen's okay. Or Hughes. Harry's not."
E-13 had felt like his name for all of one week. Until he earned something better. He wasn't sure if everything up until that week was something better, but it was...him. He had a feeling he'd be introducing himself a few more times as E-13 before the week was out.
How much did he really know about E-10? ...Candace. Whether she had been his killer or avenger (and he hoped it was the latter), she was friendly enough now.
He pushed his few belongings towards the head of the bed, and sat down next to her.
"From the what, what kind of stuff did I miss?"
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