Chapter Text
I can read you like a book
Chapter 15: Fight for Love
After Raven had been discharged from the hospital, Octavia came over to their house just to see Raven on Sunday. Raven had a relaxing time laying in her own bed with Einstein while she had Octavia run small little errands for her. The genius thought that she could have easily just built herself a robot servant if she had wanted to, but it felt better to have a conscientious companion instead.
Octavia even went as far as to call into the school, mostly talking to Principal Jaha, seeing as how he’s a family friend and requested that all her classes be changed to the ones that Raven took so that she could keep an eye on Raven. There were classes that they didn’t have together such as Octavia’s history class versus Raven’s advanced physics class. So during those classes, there’s nothing that could be done about it and they would have to be separated while in school.
Clarke almost felt sort of jealous, she knew that Raven was her sister and Octavia was crushing on her. It just almost felt like Octavia was trying to steal Raven from her, however ridiculous that sounded in her own mind. She quickly quenched her unreasonable jealousy and just allowed Octavia to try to ‘woo’ her sister.
Monday only came too soon for all of them. Octavia met them outside of their house and immediately requested that she be the one to push Raven to the school. Clarke was reluctant but Octavia gave her a meaningful look and a reassuring squeeze on her arm, silently telling her that she wasn’t trying to take Clarke’s place in Raven’s life. Clarke finally relented and allowed Octavia to push Raven’s wheelchair to the school.
When they had almost reached school grounds, Clarke let out a sigh of relief, she had been on edge during the entire walk to the school – afraid that an accident might happen.
Clarke heard someone shouting “Blondie” but did not respond. She was blonde but a lot of other people were blonde too. What’s more, the tone behind that shout did not sound friendly either, so she chose to ignore it.
Freaking blonde, how dare she not even look at me when I am shouting at her. I can’t believe Lexa has feelings for this… blonde girl.
Once she heard the name Lexa in the hostile person’s thoughts, she looked up to find Anya, Lexa’s not-so-nice sister marching towards her. She did not know what to feel – scared or determined? In the end, she went for rigid: Conceal, don’t feel.
After Anya issued her challenge, she shouted back gallantly even though she couldn’t feel a shred of confidence in herself at all, “I will prove myself to you.”
Octavia chimed in when Anya was out of their sight, “I think you are screwed, just my two cents. But hey, maybe it will be turn out better than I imagine.”
Clarke stared at Octavia blankly before she gulped loudly, her hands shaking slightly and finally she averted her gaze to her sister, “Raven, if I die today, please know that I love you. And tell mom I love her too…”
Raven scoffed humorously, “Clarke, you’ll be fine. She asked to meet at the simulation room, that means if you die in there, you won’t actually die. You’ll just have a taste of death.”
Clarke groaned loudly, “Thanks, that did not sound promising at all, Raven…”
“Don’t worry, Clarkey. When you get back home, you could squeeze Einstein’s fat body and beak to relieve your agony,” Raven gave a gentle pat to Clarke’s elbow then she gestured for Octavia to move on. Octavia obeyed right away and pushed Raven towards their homeroom.
“You coming, Clarke?” Octavia shouted back.
Clarke sighed tiredly, massaging her temple slightly, “Yeah… see you in homeroom.”
The whole day, Clarke had been even more on edge than when she was walking to school. During combat class, her sparring with Lexa was aggressive and clumsy which made her somewhat easy yet hard to fight off.
“Are you feeling well, Clarke?” Lexa asked worriedly after she had thrown Clarke off her shoulder for the fifth time.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Clarke huffed in irritation, she mustn’t have sounded convincing enough because Lexa kept watching her closely after that and giving her odd looks.
That day during lunch, Clarke hardly had any appetite to eat at all so she instead fed all the meaty chunks to her baby who had followed her all the way to school today, again hiding in her bag. While Anya who was sitting with Lexa was giddy, which meant weird in Anya’s dictionary. Anya was never giddy, not unless she was up to no good, Lexa knew that. She just didn’t know what Anya was planning or whichever poor soul was going to get it.
“Onya, what are you doing?” Lexa asked suspiciously, she did not connect the dots leading from Clarke to her sister. While she was not really concerned for whoever Anya was planning to torture, she was mildly curious and maybe just a little, she was trying to dissuade Anya so that her sister wouldn't get into any trouble.
“Oh, nothing. Just some very fun things coming up,” Anya replied nonchalantly with a shrug.
“Like?” Lexa quirked an eyebrow at her sister’s antics.
“Nothing, wouldn’t interest you anyways. Just going to be fun for me,” Anya answered a little too enthusiastically. Lexa could see Lincoln giving her a small, almost imperceptible disapproving look beside Anya.
Lexa decided to just let it go, “Okay, well, have fun, I guess.”
“Oh, I will,” Anya answered almost evilly while rubbing her palms together in the way that villains in tv shows do when they were planning something ebil. EBil with capital B.
Lexa felt almost afraid for this unfortunate soul. Almost. If only she knew who Anya was going to torture…
Finally, it was time – three sharp, and Anya was waiting for Clarke to appear before those doors. She had already prepared herself, finished her stretching and warm-ups.
Then a wild Clarke appeared, not really. Clarke walked through that door and found Anya all armoured up and ready to fight. She froze in place with her eyes widened comically in shock – she realized that she probably looked like a deer caught in headlights but she hadn’t realized how serious Anya was being. Okay, no, she knew that Anya was serious but she just didn’t expect her to put on armour, like what the hell did she just get herself into?
Meanwhile… Octavia was worrying herself over Clarke’s safety, pacing back and forth in their last class, “I think we should go check on Clarke, she could be dead already!”
“She will be fine, O. Trust me, she’s Clarke,” Raven tried to placate her friend. When that did not stop her pacing, she added, “Plus, I bugged Clarke before combat class today. I have video and audio feeds and also vital stats right here.”
Octavia hastily made her way over to Raven as she pulled out a device that looked awfully lot like a small tv screen. She tapped it alive and online. On the screen, top left, it showed a full body picture of Clarke, standing with her arms behind her back. To the right, there was her name, age, birthday, gender and general information.
“How is that helping?” Octavia asked annoyed.
“Wait, be patient, jeez.” Raven chided her.
She tapped the screen, swiped and pinched a few times before the information changed. The whole left side turned to a video of Anya standing in the simulation control room, all armoured up. To the right side, there was her stats: HP, Stamina, Heart rate (which was currently elevated), adrenaline level and emotional states which currently showed anxious, nervous, scared.
“Hmmmm,” Raven hummed for a moment.
“What?” Octavia asked, almost wanting to shake Raven… if only she wasn’t injured. While she was definitely impressed at the truly innovative device in Raven’s hand, she was much more concerned for her best friend.
“I think Clarke’s gonna die a painful death,” Raven observed.
“Oh my god, what the hell. We gotta save her, Raven! Look at that- that bitch, she looks like a freaking gladiator from the Roman period!” Octavia screeched and ran towards the exit.
“Wait, O! You can’t just leave me here,” Raven called out to the younger girl’s retreating back.
“Oh right, sorry,” She rubbed the back of her neck embarrassedly as she came back and pushed Raven out.
“But no, we’re not going anywhere,” Raven stopped Octavia.
“What, but why? Clarke is so gonna die.” Eyes wide with shock, she muttered “I thought you’re her sister and you love her.”
“I do but she won’t die, as I said, it’s only a simulation, it’s not even real. She needs to do this for herself, O,” Raven explained with a determined look on her face. “Now, all we can do is watch over her. If that girl goes crazy barbarian on my sister outside the simulation, then we will intervene.”
Octavia sighed in resignation, “Fine, but if Clarke dies at the end of the day, it’s all on you.”
“Yeah yeah,” Raven waved off Octavia’s warning, then she dragged and sort of threw the video footage out of the screen to display like a holographic image right above the device. Now, the only information displayed on the screen Raven was holding was Clarke’s vital stats.
“So you finally decided to grace me with your presence, blondie,” Anya straightened her posture and faced Clarke.
“Anya…” Clarke merely nodded her head, trying her best to act indifferent.
“Shall we begin then?” Anya said with no preamble. Lincoln stepped out from the shadow at one corner of the room, he gave Clarke an agonized look, almost as if he was asking for forgiveness without speaking. He moved to the console and set everything up.
“Ready, Lincoln?” Anya asked, to which she was given a nod after a few moments.
“Good, get in there, blondie.”
Clarke bobbed her head again and stepped into the room. She only hoped that she actually knew what she was doing, like why did she think she could do this. Anya was right behind her and then the door was sealed.
Clarke walked to one side of the room and Anya on the other side, facing each other. The room changed, weapons were displayed on every single wall for Clarke’s choosing. She chose a katana and ran her finger on the side of the sword, only just realizing how real and sharp the thing was. She slid a few other daggers and small weapons in sheaths that she clasped onto herself.
While she was preparing herself, Anya just stood silently and watched her, bored.
When Clarke was finally finished and she stood back at her starting point. The room changed again, this time into an arena looking sort of place. A fake faceless nameless referee stepped up, holding up a sign: ‘No rules, fight, and win.’ It was almost unnoticeable but right below those words, were tiny letterings: ‘Any way you can.’
It stepped back and the sign changed: ‘On the gunshot, the match begins.’ When it was far enough away from the two, it raised a gun and it was shot before Clarke was ready. The referee vanished right after.
Anya had immediately charged towards Clarke, sword at the ready. Anya knew that Clarke was inefficient in physical combat and she knew that she did not even remotely need her powers to defeat the blonde. So she just kept brandishing her sword wildly and gave Clarke no rest as they fought.
Finally, she had disarmed Clarke and now held a katana and her own sword in her hands while Clarke held tightly and pathetically onto a small dagger. She smirked smugly.
Too easy. That’s why people like her would never be good enough for Lexa.
Clarke clenched her jaw having heard her thoughts. No, she was not going down so easily. She reached out then, to search for something, that strong power that’s always lying around somewhere for her.
It took a while but she finally found it – it was very far away, even further away than that time she had used it during the cafeteria big reveal. However, she could still easily grasp onto the power. After Anya had finished revelling in her victory, she raised her sword to deal the finishing blow, expecting the match to be over soon enough. Just then, Clarke lashed out a burst of fire and had Anya stumbling clumsily backwards.
“What the…” Anya barely got out before Clarke had the ground swallow her feet and held her in place.
“How…!?” Anya snarled in confusion as Clarke walked slowly towards her opponent.
“The referee did say to use any way you can to win,” Clarke said without even a hint of smugness, she knew not to underestimate her opponent, Anya would never give up so easily.
Anya’s eyes flashed dangerously and then Clarke heard a loud shuffling noise behind her. She turned to find a gigantic dragon skeleton in front of her.
Clarke glanced back at Anya, “Animator…”
“Surprised?” Anya grinned smugly before more rumbling noises surrounded them.
Clarke did a three-sixty of her surrounding, undeads – zombies, skeletons, slime-covered goo with pieces of bones in them all crawled out from under the ground.
“Fuck.” Yes, this was definitely a fuck moment for Clarke.
She just knew that she was not going to get out of this painlessly but the easiest way out would be to defeat Anya and all the reanimated skeletons would vanish. What she did not count on, however, was how difficult it would be to kill Anya. Just as she twirled back in spot, aiming to stab Anya in the heart, a skeleton smashed into her side and caused to lose her aim. It instead slashed deeply across Anya’s arm. Clarke watched as the wound quickly stopped bleeding and sealed back on itself. She gasped, not only was Anya an animator, she was a regenerator. How else could the universe fuck with her? The only thing she could rejoice in now… was that at least, this was merely a simulation and she wouldn’t actually die. Although it would still be very very painful.
Clarke used all the elements that were at her disposal to aid her in getting out of this while some of the undead were digging around Anya’s feet to release her from her rock trap.
She burned a horde of zombies, she froze another horde of slimey-goo, she air-razored the skeletons into pieces. She struck a zombie with a lightning blade and kicked him off as it stumbled backwards and knocking another zombie back with it. She immediately swerved around to slash off a skeleton’s extended arm towards her.
This scenario gave her the impression of an apocalypse, no matter how many she took out, they kept coming back with no reprieve on her end. Anya had already been freed and was merely watching Clarke struggle now. The gigantic bone dragon hadn’t even tried to get at Clarke yet, the blonde could only imagine how bad it would get.
She was running short on breath, exhausted, sweat-soaked and panting labourously.
“Raven… does this call for us to stop them?” Octavia asked worriedly.
“This does look very very bad, O. But still, I believe in Clarke. What’s more, this offers me a perfect opportunity to assess Anya’s strengths. This might come in handy.” Raven answered unsurely as she tapped around on her screen.
“Okaayyy…” Octavia agreed uneasily.
After an hour had passed, her power thief ability let up. Powers could only be mimicked for a certain amount of time after all. After that, with her exhausted physique and powerless, she could no longer keep the undead at bay. They advanced closer and closer to her.
Tearing at her skin, munching on her arms, clawing at her back… It was excruciating, it was painful, it was tears-evoking pain. Clarke refused to scream, she refused to ask for help, if she had to die, she would without grumbling or screaming.
At this point, Octavia and Raven were just glad that they couldn’t see Clarke’s battered body as hordes of undead threw themselves onto her. Raven couldn’t even watch anymore while Octavia held on, hoping that Raven would finally break and let her go to help Clarke.
Lincoln merely clenched his jaw tightly as he kept watching from the outside, he pitied Clarke but he also admired Clarke’s strength and willpower.
Anya had been watching Clarke fight off her undead. She knew Clarke was not too good with physical combat but she really had to give it up to Clarke for her persistence. Being able to master her power thief so well that she could mimic an ability for an hour. That was almost a record and being able to steal powers that were not in the simulation room? That was definitely commendable. She finally let up and all the undead sunk back into the ground, where they rightfully belong, the dragon also collapsed and vanished.
She strode towards the spot where Clarke’s battered body laid, she said simply, “You lost.” Then she stabbed a sword into Clarke’s chest, finally stopping all the pain wracking through her body.
With that, Lincoln finally ended the simulation and Clarke laid on the floor, uninjured as good as new, except that she might be a little traumatized. She lifted her upper body with her elbow, and although all the pain was gone, it was still very fresh in her memory.
Anya extended her hand to Clarke and Clarke looked at it suspiciously, she lost the fight so she did not know why Anya would be trying to be civil now but she took it anyway. The brunette was still Lexa’s sister after all and that meant something to Clarke.
After the older girl helped Clarke stand up, she released her hand almost right away and stepped back, “You suck at combat.”
Clarke’s eyes turned harder at the words but otherwise did not retaliate.
“My sister deserves better.”
Clarke clenched her jaw and her fists.
“You are promising though, from now on, you will meet me here after school and I shall personally train you to be better at combat,” Anya then walked away and opened the door. She nodded her head at Lincoln, they were almost out of the control room when Clarke questioned, “Did you just give me your approval?”
“No, idiot. I gave you a beating of your life and will be giving you more beatings in the future. Be ready, because I won’t hold back. Lexa shall not hear a word of this, do we have an understanding?” Anya spoke without turning around.
Clarke nodded her head and answered, “Understood... but why?”
“Thought you were smart, blondie, figure it out yourself.” She left without even a wave or any other acknowledgement. Lincoln, however, he glanced back at her briefly, flashing a smirk and a thumbs-up behind his back where Anya couldn’t see.
After they left, Clarke was left standing alone in the control room. She picked up her bookbag and peeked inside to see her baby looking back at her.
“Hey, mommy’s okay, don’t worry,” She cooed when her baby squawked anxiously and patted its head before she pulled the straps of her bag onto her shoulders. Just as she was leaving, two bodies rushed in and one of them wrapped their arms around Clarke.
“Oh god, Clarke, you had us so scared for a moment there. I’m so glad Raven’s bug didn’t show us how battered you looked,” Octavia rambled on in relief as she felt Clarke’s warmth seeping into her frame. Clarke was about to wrap her own arms around Octavia until she heard about the bug.
“You bugged me? Raven!” Clarke pushed Octavia back and grumbled indignantly at her sister.
“Hush, it was for your own good. Now come give your sister a hug, I need to see for myself how alive you still are,” Raven swatted Clarke’s comment away. Clarke shook her head with a smile before she stepped in and held Raven tightly.
“I’m fine, Ray. Sorry for worrying you.”
“Yeah yeah, just don’t do that again. God, that girl is insane!” Raven finally let Clarke go but both her hands held on to Clarke’s face staring into her eyes, searching for any signs of pain. Then she plucked off a small device from the nape of Clarke’s neck.
“When did you even do that?” Clarke questioned in surprise.
“When you were distracted during the entire day, of course.” Her sister answered without remorse.
“Yeah, she is very intense alright… and oh damn... Imagine how we’ll do when we go up against her team during the fighting competition. So not looking forward to that. I sure hope you can find out a way to counter her, Raven.” Octavia groaned.
“Talking about that, have we signed up yet?” Clarke asked.
“Nah, but we still got this week and the next to sign up anyways. We’ll do it tomorrow, no worries,” Octavia patted Clarke’s back.
“Oh, by the way, Anya would be training me from now on, in physical combat after school every day,” Clarke added as an afterthought on their way back home.
“You have got to be kidding me, and you accepted?” Octavia gaped even as she continued to push Raven’s wheelchair.
“Yeah, I did. I mean, she is Lexa’s sister, she couldn’t be that bad,” Clarke shrugged nonchalantly.
“Did you not see what she did to you today?” Octavia asked, disbelief still hanging strongly in her voice.
“I think it could be beneficial for us, actually. She is a very strong fighter; I could learn a lot from her. Plus, maybe she will open up to me soon…” Clarke explained.
“Yeah, or let her torture you some more. God, Clarke, I never knew you were such a masochist,” Octavia shook her head tiredly.
Raven reached out her hand to hold onto Clarke’s, she stared intensely into Clarke’s eye as she gave her support, “If you believe it would be good for you and that you’ll be alright. I trust you; I trust that you are making a sound decision.”
“You did not just support that, Ray,” Octavia protested at the same time that Clarke mumbled her thanks.
“I did, now shut up, O. Keep pushing and I want my coffee after we get back,” Raven said in her no-nonsense commanding voice.
Octavia sighed in resignation again, she really couldn’t believe how much Raven could talk her into and how she would actually follow her off the cliff if that’s what was asked of her, “Ok, fine. And if you regret it later, Clarke. Don’t say that I never warned you. And if you come to me whining, I would only say ‘I told you so’ then.”
“Thanks,” Clarke smiled at her sister and best friend, having their support made her feel a little better.
“By the way, Indra also offered to give me extra training after school from now on,” Octavia added almost as if she had just recalled it, and she probably only just did.
“And you only thought of telling us that now?” the two sisters asked in sync incredulously.
“Yeah well, I just sort of remembered it. You know, what with everything going on today, Clarke fighting the scary undead princess, it sorta just went over my head, you know?” Octavia chuckled nervously.
“And did you accept?” the two of them asked at the same time again.
“I did…” Octavia worried her lips between her teeth after her answer.
“That’s great, O,” Clarke smiled at her but Raven wasn’t as thrilled, “Then what about me? You two are going to be sword training after school, what am I supposed to do?”
“How about have Bellamy or Wells take you back?” Clarke asked, at the same time that Octavia suggested, “I could bring along your techy stuff so you could build things while you wait for us?”
Raven sighed, “Fine, I won’t rain on your parades. I’ll figure something out and bide my time as I wait for you guys to finish.”
“Thanks Ray.” Octavia said, “And I will be training in our combat class, I’ll take you to the room so you can wait with me?”
“Sure O. Just have my coffee ready while I wait,” Raven agreed.
“No problem, boss,” Octavia smiled brightly, any extra time spent in Raven’s vicinity was time well spent to Octavia.
The next day, Clarke’s group finally signed up for the annual National Fighting Competition. They were rather excited over the prospect of fighting internationally. It was no easy feat to win national annually but then again, for Clarke’s group, it wasn’t too bad since their country did not hold enough challenge for them, no one was ever strong enough to defeat them. Until now… if one was to compare Clarke’s group with Lexa’s who were all seasoned warriors, Clarke’s group might have just met their challenge.
For better or worse, Clarke and Octavia would now begin their training by two experienced and strong warriors… a month before the tournament. Let’s hope it would actually make a difference.