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He didn't answer the text message.

He did, however, arrive at the training fields, his expression gaunt and his skin paler than usual, an almost sickly shade to match the dark circles beneath his eyes and the way that his hands trembled slightly as he walked, shoving them into the pockets of his jeans.

It was clear he had not slept in probably days.

There were no casual words exchanged; no normal sunny greeting with a smile, a laugh, a pat on the head, maybe even a hug. He knew instinctively that Nevada's death was not Stormy's fault, but there was something off about her since having returned to the island; and there was a simmering anger bubbling just below the surface of Ian, heavy and black and charred, threatening to explode at any moment.

His heart ached.

Ian came to a stop a few feet from Stormy and said nothing, merely withdrew his hand from his pocket and summoned Naomi, the dagger held tightly in one hand.

--and the next instant, the greatsword was in her hands as she dashed forward.

She didn't want someone who would hold back. She didn't want Otto who had suffered enough on her account, or Gale because they weren't the same rank and he might have asked too many questions (or worse, tried to stop her), and it was dirty business she would not ask of her other family to participate in. Ian was the only left who could possibly understand: left behind without so much as a goodbye, faced with someone who had promised to stop the inevitable.

And he looked ready to snap even. It was perfect.

Her intro was sloppy, but she didn't need to do much: just enough to incite that temper.

hp 50
damage 1
charge 1/3

If she were to be honest, she never liked the fact that her weapon was large. It had worked against her in the caverns, where she couldn't get the necessary momentum to crush her opponents when downed because there was no room to, and it worked against her in fights with more nimble weapons like Ian's. The dagger struck and her face twitched in recognition of the pain. But it wasn't enough, nearly enough. She had to goad him.

"I killed her." Stormy batted the weapon away and locked eyes with Ian, her voice sounding foreign in her ears. "Did you know that? I was with her on the mission where it happened, and I didn't stop her. I let her get her weapon broken by that monster because I was too scared to act. I killed her, Ian."

Her grip was much more assured as leapt again, the swing far heavier. "But she was the weaker one anyway." Like acid the words burned her throat with their lies.

hp 45
damage 11
charge 2/3

"Because she chose me to go with her for a reason. Not you. Not Otto."

He wasn't taking the bait, or the reeling was too slow for her liking. She had to be everything she hated: self-righteous, self-centered, and antagonistic. She had to draw on her darkest thoughts and present them as the actual truth, even as every moment she spent digging into Ian made her feel less and less like a person and more and more like a scoured bag of meat. But sometimes, sacrifices had to be made in order to help.

"Because," Stormy continued in a colder, as-a-matter-of-factly way, thinking back on all of the times Jack had been condescending, all of the times Thane had snitted at her, and using them as models, "I'm there for people. I've always been there for her. Before she decided she loved Otto, I was her roommate, helping her cope without her twin in a place that wanted to kill us. Before she decided you were her best friend, I was her sister, helping her get through every broken relationship, even when she thought it would happen to us."

She raised her weapon not to attack but as part of a defensive stance, her free hand grazing the broad side of the blade as she eyed the other Mist. "I'm special because nobody put as much effort into trying to save her than I did. Nobody. Everyone was busy telling her 'it'll be alright', 'I don't want you to go', 'I love you,'" and Ian was given a knowing look as if thinking of a particular instant, "while I was out researching anything and everything to stop it until I forgot how to sleep. That's why."

The martyr question, like all things that made her uncomfortable or that were moot points, was ignored.

hp 45
damage defending for 2
charge 2/3

She gave a humorless smile. "No. While you were busy with your boyfriend, I was busy being everyone's little optimist. Guess that doesn't matter now, huh?"

hp 45
damage defending for 2
charge 2/3

The slap was nothing, her shield notwithstanding. It stirred old emotions and old memories in a brief stint of deja vu, but it wasn't enough to draw her in like daydreams normally could. It wasn't the same Stormy evoking them; the pull of pain was somehow more satisfying than her imagination for once, the idea of being punished vindicating her lies.

Thus, the dagger happily broke through her measley defense as she gasped in pain. Thane, silent but vigil, snarled as she let it happen. This was no battle, this was nothing he could take pleasure in: this was prey inciting predator and it was degrading given what her goal was.

< < You call for spars to show your dominance, not to barb and be granted a penalty! You are better than this pointless idiocy. > >

And on the inside, Stormy laughed at her partner because, apparently, she was not.

"I am better," she all but growled, twisting her weapon and catching the dagger against one of its sprouted teeth near the hilt, pushing Ian back but not pursuing. In fact, she took two quick steps back, her weight on her toes. "You--all of you--didn't lift one damn finger except to say 'I'm sorry.' I fought for her when everyone else gave up! I did my damndest when you all thought of her as a dead man walking, and that alone makes me better."

(Even if it was false hope. There could have been something else, there always was--)

"You'd rather drink your problems away, wouldn't you, Ian? Everyone else does. Everyone else'd rather drink and forget like that's the right thing to do, but not me, not me. I've spent every hour very, very sober." She almost sounded manic about it, even though her expression was narrowed and angry and almost unfamiliar at this point. "You know what I think? She brought Otto because everyone knows loved ones should be there when it counts, and I guess we didn't just make the cut. Not me, because I would have stopped her. Not you, because you wouldn't have done a damn thing anyway!"

hp 38
damage 2
charge 3/3

His scream made her feel better for all the wrong reasons, his words like helpful scissors cutting away everything that wasn't needed, the living expression both frightening and thrilling her. Finally, finally, she had hit home enough to make him snap. Oh, Stormy had forgotten what it was like to be the object of someone's ire, the odd sense of importance it gave her even when it was artificially induced like this battle. But Ian would feel better, afterwards. Acceptable targets were necessary in life. If not, things would just bottle up and bottle up and bottle up

(like bile rising up her throat, bugs crawling down her throat, hands grasping at her throat, asking her, why you, why you?)

and that just wouldn't do. He deserved a chance to get it out and move on.

Startlingly, Stormy didn't rise to his own accusations. Instead as Ian stalked forward, she seemed to relax a little, as if hearing it from someone else too was part of a necessary punishment that only furthered her goals. It held as much truth as her own words did: correct, technically, but also one-dimensional. Just enough for their purposes today.

She did a better job of preparing for the strike, but the dagger dug far deeper than she could stop and Ian was rewarded with a scream of her own. Her arm thrashed instinctively, not to push him away but to latch onto his own and keep him there, fingers and nails clamping down, almost silently inviting him to keep going. "I said I was better," Stormy repeated through clenched teeth, stepping into his space and pressing the parrying hooks from before into his gut. "I didn't say I was sinless."

The scar Nevada left her tingled sympathetically along with her new soon to be bruised point.

Her voice became condescending. 'If you think so little of me, Ian, why don't you try actually hitting me? Because right now, I don't see your point. All I see's a sad, strange little man screaming like a child."

hp 32
damage 6
charge 3/3