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One down, four to go. Epsilon Ten did not feel human anymore, not since the moment she touched this scythe. Epsilon Five had said he'd see her in Hell, but you know what? Hell was too good for her. Epsilon Ten did not deserve something as amazing as Hell. She did not deserve the blessing of being with anyone, not even the people she had killed. She needed to stop existing completely. She knew this. She wasn't a fool to believe herself immune to anything, but she could delude herself into believing she was the Angel of Death and it was her sole purpose in life to carry out the punishment of death upon those who had sinned. In her eyes, she was no longer Epsilon Ten. She pushed A4's body away with her foot and stepped over it to go back to the empty side of the room, turning toward the four people still left. She was a monster and she was not going to go down without a fight. Her chest and shoulders rose with every labored breath, the blood and adrenaline pumping through her veins and making her feel invincible. Epsilon Ten was the Angel of Death, she was judging these people for their sins. Their sin?

Apathy. And greed.

She had lost her mind the moment she put on the reaper's robe; in truth she couldn't care less about protecting anyone but herself, she had killed Gamma 3 in cold blood from behind with the sole purpose of taking the scythe and her pendant from her. And now look at her. She had the scythe and three pendants. Three. Pendants. The pendants she had wanted since she first saw them mentioned in a text message. The pendants she had craved, desired, needed. She had fought for the pendants, she had tricked for them, she had done whatever it took. Did she betray her squad? Yes, she did. But one thought had run through her mind when this started, just one thought that had been lost somewhere along the line. I'm doing this for Epsilon Thirteen. It was something she had chanted to herself in her mind, though she had no idea when it stopped being for Thirteen and started being for herself. She could feel it though, she could feel her life ebbing away. She wasn't long for this world...she wasn't going down without taking as many people with her as she possibly could.

Epsilon Ten braced herself against the wall with one hand, her gaze on the floor and her eyes closed. She was tired, she was so..so tired. Just a little longer, she could make it; she would be the last man standing. There was no 'but' or 'if', she would be the last man standing. There was no other option. She had to kill or be killed and she would much rather do the killing. There was no room in Hell for people like Epsilon Ten; she couldn't even call herself a person. Not after the things the things she had done.

She heard footsteps. They were coming for her. She coughed and stood on shaky feet, swaying gently with exhaustion.

She began to hum, something sweet, something strangely uplifting. She hummed and she hummed, the humming getting louder until..

"Mine eyes..have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord..." She coughed, her voice shook and trembled.

She was scared.

"He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored..."

She was so scared.

"He hath loosed..the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword..." Epsilon Ten supported herself mostly with the scythe. Her own terrible swift sword. She swallowed hard and forced herself to keep going, tears streaming down her face. "His truth...is marching..." The chair was thrown and impacted with her head with a sickening crack that seemed to echo in her head for the split second she was able to think. Her body was sent stumbling back, moved only by the adrenaline that remained in her system despite her instant death. She was dead before she hit the ground, and as she fell she fell on the blade of her own scythe.

If she could thank Alpha Eleven, she would.

((Epsilon Ten had three pendants and the reaper's scythe.))

[A-Eleven is attacking Theta-Thirteen with the Scythe]

The Scythe was heavy and warm in her hand. She couldn't tell if the heat was leftover from E-Ten's hand, from blood or from the weapon itself. It didn't matter. Besides, she found the warmth almost comforting. Something soothing in this hell room of blood and stench.

tick tick tick
Somewhere in her mind she registered a faint sound.

Tears still streamed down her cheeks as she gazed upon the remaining survivors, two from Phoenix and another, Theta Thirteen was it? A-Eleven almost breathed a sigh of relief. She had enough pendants for the members of Phoenix, and she saw no reason to kill the other person if they did not attack. Perhaps it was over. Perhaps they were done.

Silence

She noticed it too late. Not that it mattered. When the sound started, she knew what it was. The room was still shrinking. Still crying out for more blood. Debris around her feet, bodies and mush all together, rising higher as the wall pushed her towards the others in the room. She would have screamed if her breath had not caught in her throat.

She didn't notice how small the room was getting, she was trying to hard to stay upright. The pendants hung from her wrist, swinging as she tried to lean and support herself with the Scythe as her feet tried not be buried and caught in the debris. If the wall had not been at her back, she was sure she would have fallen over and been lost in the small sea of carnage.

No time to think. Only act. If she'd had time to think, she would have been grateful for that. Three days ago, she might have been lost it in a place like this. So much blood, so much death. Then she'd accepted that her reality would be bloody. Would be tainted forever with death. It was the type of thing that was easier to accept when one didn't think about it.

No time to think, though it seemed like eons before the walls stopped. For almost a second, she thought she could collect herself. Then the lights went out.

The only sounds in the room were the ticking, and the sound of liquid swishing around among things that were very non-liquid. Then A-Two spoke.

"The wall?" A-Eleven murmured in response to A-Two's request. The faint blue glow reflected off of the walls as A-Eleven looked sideways at them. She was keenly aware of things hitting her legs, even attempting to crush her. Her footing was a bit difficult to keep. The Scythe was heavy, but if she leaned on it just a bit, it was helpful. The wall?

But the figure in the cloak had said there was a traitor among them. The clock would only stop ticking when they were "dealt with properly". As long as the clock ticked, the walls would creep in, right? If this were all true...then the traitor was here, with them. One of the last four standing.

tick tick tick

"No," she said, softly but calmly. The blue like glinted off the the wall, the figures in the room and the soup they stood in. "The only way out of this room is to deal with the traitor." The stranger had kept their word once, why would this topic be any different? A-Eleven stared at the masks of the others in the room. One of us. She hoped, deep inside, that it was not one of the Phoenix Squad. That would break her heart. That would leave...under the mask, her eyes turned to T-Thirteen.

She remembered something else A-Two had just said, "when they rise."
Right, others had come back from the dead. Perhaps, perhaps everyone would rise again. Only the traitor deserved a permanent death. This was something she had to believe.

Within the warm sludge, she subtly shifted her feet to a more solid footing. The room was tiny, but she still needed her balance. As she focused on her feet and the Scythe in her hand, she failed to notice that the tears were still streaming down her face. They hadn't stopped since E-Ten had fallen.

tick tick tick

The only warning of her strike was the movement of light and the sound of the Scythe being heaved through the debris and blood. She was aiming for Theta Thirteen.

Her swing, even in this tight space missed. She stayed silent as she quickly tried to recover, gripping the Scythe tightly. This wasn't over.

((Hp: 15
Damage to Theta Thriteen: 0))


((Bedtime for me! I'll be up in about 6 hours, and I can check in from work, so hopefully I won't hold things up too much. Sorry for the time zone trouble!))

Red. So much red...and sticky. It squelched underneath A-Nine's boots and gurgled whenever she moved. She swam her fingers through it, bumping around various bits of debris, entrails, and bone. Something tangled in her left hand. A-Nine paused and hummed tunelessly as she carefully untangled her hand from the wrapped intestine and tossed the debris clump aside.

'Not red' had died and one of their own, not the one that always said 'like' but the other one, had the scythe. Phoenix had the scythe. Things would be okay. Crisis averted, A-Nine drifted off again.

Only, everyone was crowding her. A-Nine fretfully tried to shove at the other room's occupants; trying to get them to move so she could have more space. She was pressed up against the wall and it was getting uncomfortable. The wall....

The one who said 'like' all the time was screaming something about the wall. Or a tick-tick noise. And she didn't even say 'like' once. How odd.

Now that A-Nine thought about it, there was something loudly ticking, audible even above A-Nine's own frenetic breathing. Was the other phoenix talking about a clock? A wall clock? A-Nine flicked her gaze about but the walls were bare. A-Two. That was the other girl's name. A-Two was silly, the only clock in here was the hooded figure's watch and A-Nine had found that in the intestine-wrapped debris earlier and had tossed it aside. It was half submerged in the muck near her leg now, probably. It was too dark for A-Nine to see it anymore.

There was frenzied movement behind her. A-Nine dully stopped squinting into the darkness and tried to focus. The other phoenix, A-Eleven, was attacking someone. Not red, but also not that crazy not red who was killing.... A-Nine's mind swam. She would have fallen if she wasn't already pressed up against the wall.

A-Eleven was killing.

"Don't." she wheezed, awkwardly reaching back and trying to give A-Eleven a reassuring pat. "Don't kill. Too much killing. Get us out."

[A-Nine is attacking Theta-Thirteen]

The world had gone crazy, everything had gone crazy. It was all red and brains and bits of bone. A-Nine's head was buzzing. She shook it, trying to clear her mind. Focus. Must focus. A-One would have wanted her to focus. A-Seven would have slapped her on the back and yelled at her; Zeta-Eight would have looked at her with cold scorn; Zeta, zeta... what were the other phoenix numbers?

She closed her eyes and tried to remember. A-Two and A-Eleven were here. The rest were all pieces and red. But they would be fine; a phoenix rose from the ashes -- or goop, in this case. A-Nine giggled, a high pitched sound.

They were... they were fine...

There was even more scrabbling and shouting now. The not red was attacking A-Eleven. That snapped her into focus.

There was too much killing. Death would come to them all, so why hurry it along? But. She had promised.

A-Nine had promised everyone that she would stand by her squad. She would be useful. She would! Moreover, she had promised A-Eleven, long ago once, ages ago, back on that beach. Promised they wouldn't back-stab each other. That was a truce, right?

She couldn't stand by and let A-Eleven die. She wouldn't. She had promised.

With a screeching scream, A-Nine grabbed a chunk of wood, a chair leg? and whammed it as best she could into the not red. She would protect her teammate or die tying.

((Hp: 15
Damage to Theta Thriteen: 5))

((Going to be somewhat busy tonight but will be back around 8:30-9pm PST. If A9 is holding things up I give Sosiqui permission to move her along as she sees fit.))

Theta Thirteen snarled behind his mask as he was struck by the other two Alpha Members, "You destroy that watch, right now, and you stop this and maybe MAYBE I won't ring your friends head off for trying to kill ME!"

(( HP:9 ))

Adrenalin pumped through Thirteen, he wanted to beat all the people in the room, he really did, he blamed all of the Alpha's for the death of his friend. So when A-Eleven stepped back he stumbled, partially due to all the blows to his head.

He started to yell again but silence was demanded. He was stunned for a moment as a pendant, again, struck him in the face. When he finally realized it he stared down at the pendant quivering slightly, eventually he started crying.

"He-he was the only friend..." Slowly he would crouch down into the blood water, his hands shifting about among the muck eyes clenched shut, he didn't want to see Five floating among it. One hand clenched around the pendant, the other sifting about for the watch... where was Harry's body? He threw it at him last...

"It was near... Harry... where was he..." he mummbled, "Five where did I leave it..."

((Theta 13 is... going crazy?))

Slowly an idea formed in Thirteen's head, slowly lowering into the blood muck he shivered, thankfully his suit seemed to have an air supply but the smell still leaked in.

"Show me five... show me the watch..." holding out his glowing pendant he used the light to look for the watch. "Show me five... find the watch, find it for me..." He mumbled behind the mask as he searched among the filth and gore with the pendants light.